


Separation

by Multiple_Characters1_Acct



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Female Frisk (Undertale), Gen, I am not good at tags, Male Alphys (Undertale), Male Chara (Undertale), Minecraft characters show up 1 time at the end, Post-Apocalypse, Realistic Minecraft, Undyne/Alphys is mentioned but not a focus, Video Game Mechanics, Worldbuilding, in either universe, no respawning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 40,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26960875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multiple_Characters1_Acct/pseuds/Multiple_Characters1_Acct
Summary: The apocalypse happened.The culture of the underground kingdom became just as separate from the culture of the surface as they were physically.A separation of life and death and trust.Then, a child was born on the 2000th anniversary.Her name is Nafriskenta, and she is the hero of this story.It was only a matter of time before the separation between them collapsed.(On FF.Net and AO3)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 9





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> After too long in development, finally, my first completed, multi chapter fic is here. This is a rewrite of a previous story, called 'Friends Are Useful', but I recommend reading this one first as the plotlines are fairly identical and spoilers abound.
> 
> Art is drawn by me.
> 
> (Names are pronounced:  
> Nafriskenta: Nah-fr-risk-in-ta  
> Nafi: Nah-fee)

**PROLOGUE**

Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a boy named Chara. He lived in an orphanage in a small town at the base of Mt. Ebott. 

He is not the hero of this story.

For one day he climbed Mt. Ebott and disappeared, only to reappear dead in the arms of a monstrous goat. The monster was driven off, but many other children vanished going up that mountain.

Once upon a time, not as long ago, there was a girl named Frisk. She lived in an orphanage in a small town at the base of Mt. Ebott.

She is not the hero of this story.

For one day she climbed Mt. Ebott and was caught in the largest earthquake ever recorded. The earthquake destabilized the cave she took refuge in, crushing her. Her body was never found.

  
The sad part is nobody noticed her death, there were more pressing issues.

Namely, the dead started to rise.  
  
It wasn’t dangerous, at first. In fact, no one noticed for a few months as only those that died after the earthquake rose, and not all of them right away.

Early during this time, a scientist had a breakthrough in strength enhancements. The formula was actually very simple, cheap, and had very little side effects. Many people were surprised it hadn’t been found earlier.

People could lift boulders up to one ton, strike with just as much force, and run for hours over thirty miles per hour. The only cost was that they needed to eat twice as much.  
  


It had just moved into the final stages of human testing when the zombie issue became apparent.  
  
Not a month later entire towns were being slaughtered, no matter what the military, or anyone, tried to do. One of those towns was the small town at the base of Mt. Ebott.   
  
The people panicked. A solution was needed. Luckily, one was just created.   
  
Every nation built many factories to create the strength formula in response to this new threat. But as more and more towns and cities were destroyed, construction was split to focus on walls. 

With a demand for walls, a threat looming over every moment, and panic setting in, health laws were disregarded. Soon, a thick layer of smog was created around the whole planet, the sun was prevented from shining, and everything was permanently overcast. 

The factories, built. The formula, distributed. The cost, deadly.

The only side effect came back to bite them.

Every mouth eating for two, food started to run out. 

No one wanted to leave the walls because they would get killed, so the factories were torn down for farms.

It wasn’t enough. Someone would have to go outside to the old farms. 

It started with Death Row, then general prisoners, then the jobless. Eventually it was anyone who had not taken the formula. They didn’t last long.

  
The food was still running out, so anyone who was not proficient in any weapon were sent out to the farms, those who could fight were kept to protect the walls. They actually lived for longer, but because it took such a long time to get the food back, some of the cities took drastic measures. 

Humans do have meat right?

The survivors ran to the other cities, but not everyone who fled came with good intentions. People were dying left and right and adding to the zombies and skeletons banging on the walls and something had to be done. 

Empty buildings? Gone. Parks? Gone. Museums? Gone. If it wasn't for use as shelter, it was torn down and made into a farm.

Nothing else mattered, only survival.

  
Even that was not truly enough. Animals grew slow and there was never enough. Plants grew almost slower, the sun always hidden in the clouds of smog. 

  
Because farming and guard work were the only jobs now, many people had nothing to do and they also needed food. So they were made useful. 

Some as scavengers sent out to gather anything that was left from the abandoned farms, some as fighters to kill as many creatures as they could before dying. Not many ever came back. 

It was one less mouth to feed.

  
Then, five hundred years after it started, it got worse. 

New creatures started to appear. Plants mutated into walking bombs, called Creepers for short. Spiders that had grown to over six feet and could jump twice that. Long blackish purple beings that poisoned anything they touched but only attacked if you looked them in the eyes, called Endermen. Life became much harder.

Then acid rain started to fall, eating at the crops, walls, and homes.

The threshold for those who were killed became lower and lower, if they were dead they didn’t need food or shelter.

If you were considered useless, you were dead.

Life continued, but they weren't truly living.  
  


Until a thousand years after the earthquake, the sun shone properly onto the earth for the first time in a very long time.

The fire that was created sacred everyone, but the screams turned to cheers as they realized it was the undead burning in the sun.

The Creepers put down their roots, the spiders became blind, and the Endermen ran away.

Plants, normal plants, regrew, animals had a population boom, and the acid rain eventually stopped.

The humans looked over their walls and out upon the world.  
  
The world had changed.

Caves dotted the land, the abandoned towns and cities were no more, and the ocean had risen considerably. It was still dangerous, yes, but not as much as it used to be. 

  
Humans left the safety of the walls to repopulate the world. 

Without the laws the cities provided, the thought process of 'kill the useless' was taken to its horrible conclusion. If you were more useful to someone dead, you were killed. If you were more useful to someone alive, you were kept alive even if you would rather not be. 

Humans killed more humans than the creatures did these days.

The culture of the underground kingdom became just as separate from the culture of the surface as they were physically. A separation of life and death and trust.

Then, a child was born on the 2000th anniversary of the earthquake.

Her name is Nafriskenta, and she is the hero of this story.

It was only a matter of time before the separation between them finally collapsed.


	2. CHAPTER 1: Not So Happy Birthday

**CHAPTER 1: Not So Happy Birthday**

“Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday Nafi, happy birthday to me,” she sang to herself in her bedroom.

The past twenty years had not been kind to Nafriskenta, or as she goes by now, Nafi. As a vegetarian in a world of meat eaters she was an outcast, considered more work than necessary. One of her only saving graces was she built her home on top of a destroyed town, giving her lots of scrap and resources to sell for seeds and farming supplies.. The other being her skills with a sword and engineering.

Opening the secret door to her bedroom, Nafi stepped out into her main room, making sure to close the door behind her. As it was her birthday, she decided to treat herself.

The farms could last one day without her, and curling up with a book and freshly baked cookies sounded really good right now.

She stepped over to the oven in the corner to start making some cookies, starting with grabbing some coal to heat the oven. She reached for her coal sack, and found nothing inside it.

She tensed.

Had she been stolen from?

Quickly grabbing her sword, she searched the room for any sign of someone else. It shouldn’t be possible, this room was protected by the second most complicated secret door she could make, the first being her bedroom door.

After a while of searching and finding nothing out of place, she came to a conclusion: she had just used all of her coal.

She sighed and sat down on her chair, setting her sword on the table next to her. Unless she actually went outside to gather some coal, she wouldn’t be getting those birthday cookies. Her stomach rumbled and she realized that thinking about what to do on an empty stomach was an idiotic decision and got up to get food.

While her veggie bars weren't the most appetizing, they gave her the calories needed to get stuff done. That, and they were easy to make and carry a lot of.

Maybe she could hunt meat on the way, but spite is one of her main driving forces and she isn’t going to give up on vegetarianism just yet. Her spite was also one of many reasons she was out here in the middle of nowhere instead of where she grew up, one of the walled cities.

One of the only cities with a library left, not that it has any books now given that when she left she stole what books remained. 

If no one was going to teach her how to live, she’d do it herself.

She didn’t really stop to check what books she grabbed when she left, and one of them had been a video game manual. It was a tiny thing, the reason it was missed when these things had to be burned for warmth early in the Rainy Years, but it detailed the plot and how to play it. Not that she actually had the game to play. 

It was from that small book that she figured out she wasn’t as normal as she thought she was.

Although, speaking of books, she was reading one as she ate.

A creak sounded out from above her and she focused on where the sound came from. When her HUD brought up nothing but her own status. 

Health: 20, Defense: 1, Attack: 6. 

She relaxed.

Yes, she has a HUD. She also has a cheat console, able to teleport things to her and give her temporary power ups. She had no idea why she had either of those things, and she could sit there and theorize all day but, at the end of it all, knowing why wasn’t needed for survival.

It was a great surprise tactic as well when no one expected her to suddenly become twice as strong as she was.

That didn’t really matter at the moment, because even though she was currently full, having just finished her meal, she still wanted those cookies. If she was going to get those cookies, she would have to go out and get some fuel for her oven.

She could teleport coal to her location but last time she did that the misunderstanding that caused destroyed an entire town. She wasn’t going to try again.

While she had been planning on spending the day inside where she could relax, the cookies called to her. Time to go mine for coal.

She changed out of her sleepwear into a plain, purple, long sleeve shirt and blue pants, dark colors to hide herself in a dark cave if need be. She couldn’t forget about her pocket filled cape, she sewed buttons into the shoulders of all her shirts so it wouldn’t choke her and could be easily removed if grabbed. The fact that the entire thing was practically made of pockets was one of the only reasons she came up with the buttons to hold it on in the first place.

Picking up her sword, pickaxe, bow, arrows, backup food, and a makeshift torch, she slowly opened her front door, checking with her HUD to make sure no one was there. Once outside she shut the door behind her, making sure it was still impossible to spot, and headed to the mountain.   
  
From days past to today, the area around what was known as Mt. Ebbot was mostly unchanged. The forest was thicker and the mountain did look slightly like swiss cheese, but the land was relatively the same. Including where the town Nafi built her house was, specifically where the orphanage had been. Although the building was destroyed, the basement made a great starting point for her house, being mostly intact and hidden by rubble.   
  
In the past the mountain had never been mined but, now that it was so holey, Nafi loved using it as a mining ground. It had the bonus of having thick forest all up and around it, which she used as cover for the walk there, back, and any of her more odd time wasters. Like experimenting with her HUD, console, sword practice, or bow practice.   
  
At the moment, she wasn’t doing any of those things, she needed coal for cookies and she was going to get it. She knew exactly where she was going to start too, she had found a cave she had not been in yet yesterday and it would be the perfect place to start. Before long, Nafi had found it and lit her torch to light her way as she went deeper.   
  
She got very far in very quickly, almost to the middle of the mountain in almost an hour. Through all that time, she didn’t find much in the way of coal. She found some iron ore and other less useful metals, But barely enough coal to cook her cookies, much less anything else she wanted to cook.

She reached a dead end, except for a hole so deep she couldn’t see the bottom. Putting away her pickaxe, she turned to leave the cave, and looked up. Finally, coal.

She wedged her torch in the wall and got to work on trying to get the coal out of the ceiling. There was enough up there visible to last her at least a week, and there was probably still more behind it. Vowing to come back later with a ladder, she gathered up the coal she knocked down to head back home.

Then she heard a sound behind her.

Quickly dropping her pickaxe, she grabbed her sword and swung at it, burying the blade deep in the side of the Enderman.    
  
The one creature that no one ever created a plan to fight. The one creature that no one ever wanted to fight, for doing so was a death sentence as touching it poisoned you. She just pissed one off considerably.

Health: 600, Defense: 20, Attack: 10, death sentence indeed.   
  
Nafi yanked her sword out of the Enderman as it screeched in pain, internally cursing herself for getting into this situation. She ran past it, trying to get into a smaller section of the cave to hide, but didn’t get far enough. With a shout, Nafi was thrown into the wall courtesy of the Enderman's swinging arm meeting her, thankfully covered, shoulder. 

10/20   
  
She was barely able to get her sword up in a defensive position before the Enderman was on her again. 

Bringing up her console in her mind's eye, she put in the first command that came to mind.

/effect give Nafriskenta Strength 20

With her newfound strength, she batted away its attacks and struck. Swinging in a short arc, she managed to cut the Enderman's arm off.

480/600   
  
The shock of it no longer having an arm allowed Nafi to scramble up and get farther away, the strength boost fading. Distracted, she went the wrong way and soon she was faced with the pit again. The Enderman screamed in anger as it recovered behind her and charged at her. Without anywhere to move, Nafi tried to block, covering up as much exposed skin as she could. It slammed into her, sending both of them down the hole. 

Nafi managed to get the Enderman under her, hoping it could break her fall, but that turned out to be a mistake. They hit some kind of barrier on the way down, the Enderman’s body turning to steam, killing it and burning her as she fell through it.

5/20

She screamed the rest of the way down, with the ground quickly removing her consciousness.

~~~~~~~~~~

Once upon a time, not too long ago, there was a girl named Nafi. She lived in the ruins of the orphanage in the destroyed small town at the base of Mt. Ebott.

She is the hero of our story, a story that starts the same way every time. A hole, a barrier, and golden flowers.

  
~~~~~~~~~~   
  
Nafi smelled flowers. There were no flowers anywhere in her house.    
  
She immediately reacted, tossing her body up to protect herself from danger. Almost immediately she fell back on to the golden flowers again due to the pain from just barely surviving an encounter with an Enderman.    
  
"Son of a Creeper..!" She growled out in lieu of screaming in pain.

2/20

Oh this was bad.

First things first, get healthy. Or at least healthier.

/effect give Nafriskenta Regeneration 20

As her body healed on it’s own, she desperately ignored the pain of bones and muscle mending faster than they should. She could have given herself the effect for longer and be in better shape after, but not only did it make her hungry with over use, it freaking hurt! She found that out the hard way when she had been experimenting with what she could do.

When it finished, she could at least walk.

6/20   
  
Nafi retrieved her sword from where it had fallen, and started checking over her supplies. Her torch was gone, as well as her pickaxe. She still had her bow and none of the arrows broke under her weight thankfully, neither was any of her packed veggie bars crushed. She wasn’t poisoned by the Enderman and, although semi-painful, she can move. How in the world a flower bed broke her fall… Well, given that she is alive right now, she’s not going to look at it too closely.

With her situation properly assessed, she looked around the cavern that she found herself in. She couldn't climb back up the hole, the sides of the pit were way too steep even if she could actually get up to the pit’s exit. There was another path out to the west, probably the west anyway. As there was no other option but to sit there, something she can’t do in case something bad also falls down that hole, she moved down that path deeper into the cave. She shook her head to knock pollen out of her brown hair.   
  
The cave turned north a few yards in, marked by a fancy archway. 

“I thought no one lived here but me?” Nafi mused as she walked through, adjusting her grip on the sword.   
  
What made this even creepier was just how dark it was, yet there were no creatures, mutated, undead, or otherwise, other than her. Nafi was thankful for that, she had no torches and probably couldn't run away or fight in her current state.    
  
She finally found a small patch of light coming from somewhere on the ceiling, illuminating a single golden flower. 

  
"Howdy!" 

With a face.   
  
Nafi held her sword in front of her, hoping that, in the dark, the fact that it shook from her inquiries wasn’t apparent. Holding back a grunt, she did her best to look threatening.

For all of a second before she realized she was threatening a flower.    
  
"I'm Flowey! Flowey the flower!"    
  
Truly, the plant was talking. She stepped further into the light.    
  
"Hmmm... You're new to the Underground, aren'tcha? Golly, you must be so confused. Someone ought to teach you how things work around here! I guess little old me will have to do. Ready? Here we go!"    
  
Something about that seemed forced, but Nafi couldn’t dwell on it for suddenly there was a red and green swirled heart floating in front of her. Flowey looked surprised for all of a second before going back to smiling. He could have been surprised by the heart or by the sword now pointed at his flowery face. 

Health: 10, Defense: 10, Attack: 10, easy to kill if needed.   
  
Flowey leaned back, smile strained, "Hey, hey! No need for that! I just want to help you! See that heart? That is your soul, the very culmination of your being!”

She looked at the heart and got her own stats, so the flower wasn't lying about that. Red and green though? Red could represent spite, she basically runs on the stuff, but green?

He continued to talk, “Your soul starts off weak, but can grow strong if you gain a lot of LV. What's LV stand for? Why, LOVE, of course! You want some LOVE, don't you? Don't worry, I'll share some with you!" 

If she had not been an adult, that probably would have come off as pedophiliac. Since she was an adult it just came off as plain creepy.   
  
The flower flicked his leaves and small white pellets materialized and started floating towards her.    
  
"Down here, LOVE is shared through... little white... ‘friendliness pellets.’ Are you ready? Move around! Get as many as you can!"    
  
Nafi just lazily side stepped the pellets, deadpanning, "Do you even realize just how creepy and wrong what you just said was, or are you as dumb as your playing?"    
  
The flower again was surprised, but it only lasted a second before he frowned at her in anger.    
  
"You… You…!" 

He shot more pellets at her, much faster than the ones before, but a simple sword swing cut all of them from the air. Nafi’s face twitched as pain flared up her arm, but she managed to keep the same tone of voice as she said, “So not dumb, just bad at improv.”

Lunging forward, she aimed her sword to skewer the flower to the ground. She got within inches before she was blasted back by a wave of pellets, landing on her back in considerable pain.

1/20   
  
More pellets circled her, giving her no chance to escape.

“So you do know what’s going on here!” Flowey exclaimed, a demonic look on his face, “Die then!”

Unable to move and the circle of pellets closing in on her with the flower’s deranged laughter in the background, Nafi closed her eyes and focused on not dying.

She tensed, ready to spring off the ground to dodge the wave when the pellets suddenly disappeared. 

Even Flowey was confused.

Then a fireball came out of nowhere, barely missing the flower as he ducked into the earth. 

From the darkness a voice spoke, "What a horrible creature, torturing such a poor innocent youth." 

Nafi shivered at the tone and took a second to figure out why. It hit her like a lightning bolt, never had that motherly tone meant anything good for her.

A humanoid goat with paws instead of hooves walked out of the darkness, not any type of creature Nafi knew of. How she had missed the goat when she had bright white fur and was wearing a bright purple dress with more white highlights, she didn’t know. Probably had something to do with the flower trying to kill her.   
  
As the goat moved into the light Nafi tried to scoot away. A combination of trying to get away from the fire slinging goat and the bad feelings she got from the tone of voice. She didn’t get far and her movement, as well as the glowing heart above her chest, drew the goat’s attention even faster.

She gasped, "My child! You're hurt! Let me help you."    
  
As the goat descended on her with glowing green hands, she spared a single thought that she lasted fifteen more years than they expected her too. Until her injuries started to heal. Nafi spared a glance at the goat as she watched her own health tick up with no pain.

Health: 700, Defense: 80, Attack: 80, definitely not getting on her bad side if possible.

Nafi had one question, “Why?”

The goat had a confused look as she asked, "You were hurt, my child. I need no reason other than that." 

Nafi gumbled under her breath, “I’m twenty,” but otherwise stayed silent. After she was back at full she asked, "What's your name?"    
  
"I am Toriel, caretaker of the Ruins,” Toriel smiled as she stood back up and offered a paw to Nafi to help her up, which was ignored as she got up herself. 

Toriel’s smile lost a little luster, but she continued, “I pass through every day to see if anyone has fallen down. You are the first human to fall in a very long time. The first adult too." 

So she did hear that grumble. Nafi glanced to the side for half a second in embarrassment before focusing back on Toriel, not fully trusting her not to attack. “I’m Nafi. Thank you,” she grudgingly added.

Toriel’s smile came back full force, "You are welcome,” she motioned for Nafi to follow her, “Come, I will show you through the catacombs."

She started walking back the way she came and Nafi noted that the glowing heart was gone. She slowly breathed in then out and took stock of her situation.

She’s stuck in a cave with no way back, at the mercy of some sort of monster, with only enough food to last a few days or a week if she was stingy. All in all a really bad situation, but for the time being Toriel seemed to want her alive for some reason, and that would be her mistake.

  
She looked up at Toriel, seeing the goat had stopped and was waiting for her. In seconds Nafi threw together a plan.

First step, set up a character, a thing Flowey had failed.   
  
She sighed to herself, making it loud enough for Toriel to hear, "I'm going to regret this..." 

Second step, recon.   
  
Nafi followed Toriel. 

She would get out.


	3. CHAPTER 2: Ruins Of Trust

**CHAPTER 2: Ruins Of Trust**

The next room was very purple. That probably explained Toriel’s purple dress then. 

Two sets of stairs went up either side of the room, framing a pile of red leaves. Toriel climbed the stairs on the right side, Nafi right behind her, not wanting to lose the purple dressed goat in the sea of purple bricks.

As they entered the next room, Nafi was yet again greeted with purple assaulting her eyeballs. This time however, there was a purple door at the other end of the room, set in a darker purple door frame. On the floor was a light purple path and six purple switches, two on the path, four off the path.

“Welcome to your new home,” Toriel said, “Allow me to educate you in the operation of the Ruins.” 

Well, Nafi now knew what Toriel wanted with her, a captive housemate. That was easier than expected. 

Toriel solved the puzzle, stepping on the switches off the path and finishing with flicking a yellow - glorious yellow! - switch that had been previously hidden behind her. The door opened.

“The Ruins are full of puzzles,” Toriel lectured, “Ancient fusions between diversions and door keys. One must solve them to move from room to room. Please adjust yourself to the sight of them.” 

Nafi followed Toriel, sparing a glance to a purple sign on the purple wall.

“Brave ones, foolish ones, both walk not the middle road.”

Such a simple puzzle, she could make a better one in her sleep.

Entering the next room, Nafi’s eyes were blessed with slightly less purple in the form of three yellow switches, two covered in writing, on the wall to their left. On the other end of the room were a set of short spikes that could have been easily stepped over.

Toriel walked over to a sign, “To progress, you will need to trigger several switches. Do not worry, I have labeled the ones you need to flip.”

Taking a moment to read the sign (“Stay on the path!”), Nafi easily flipped the labeled switches causing the spikes to retract. 

“Splendid! I'm proud of you! Let's move on to the next room,” said Toriel as she walked past.

Nafi was more than a little angry, secret doors were basically her thing and she felt personally insulted by just how dumb these were.   
  


Thankfully, in the next room was only a training dummy.   
  
Toriel turned to Nafi, explaining, “As a human living down here, monsters may attack you. You will need to be prepared for this situation,” she gave a smile, “However, worry not! The process is simple, when you encounter a monster, strike up a friendly conversation and I will come to resolve the conflict.”    
  
Nafi gave Toriel a blank look.    
  
She motioned to the dummy and said, “Practice talking to this dummy.”   
  
It looked… like a dummy. 

Health: 10, Attack: 0, Defense: 0, why is she getting stats from an inanimate object?   
  
The green and red heart appeared and she put her sword in a defensive position, looking for the flower.    
  
Toriel interrupted her semi panicked searching, “Oh no! Dummies are not for fighting! They are for talking.”    
  
Nafi gave the room one last quick glance before lowering her sword. Deciding to treat the dummy like an animal, she patted it on the head saying, “Sorry for scaring you.”    
  
Toriel smiled, and the heart disappeared. “Good job! Follow me.”    
  
Nafi glanced around the room again before following. 

The next room was a very long room with a winding path.

“There is another puzzle in this room, I wonder if you can solve it.” Toriel mused to herself.

Before Nafi got to the end a large white frog jumped out between her and Toriel. The heart reappeared but she was more confused as to why such a large frog was down here.

  
The frog was there for only a second before Toriel was chasing it away, the heart disappearing.    
  
Continuing into the next room, they walked past a sign that Nafi quickly read. 

“The eastern room is the western room's blueprint.”   
  
Past the sign, Nafi saw the next room. Now this is a trap! An entire room full of spikes! Except no, because there were pools on either side of the spikes.

  
“This is the puzzle, but…” Toriel started but was interrupted by Nafi jumping into the knee-deep water and wading through. She climbed up on to the other side just as Toriel finished going through the spike maze, stating, “These traps are dumb.” 

Toriel said, “They are not supposed to be difficult.”

Nafi just walked past her.   
  
In the next room, yet another long one with a winding path, Toriel stopped Nafi and said, “I apologize for leaving so suddenly, but I must attend to some business. I would ask you to remain here, but something tells me you would just ignore me. I have an idea, I will give you a cell phone,” She handed Nafi said cell phone, “If you need anything, just call. Please be safe?”   
  
“I’m not going to get myself killed,” Nafi snorted.

Toriel smiled and walked away.

Nafi dropped the phone in a random pocket on her cape and waited a few seconds before following.

There were two hallways, one to the left, one to the right. Nafi went left first

It was a dead end with a bowl of… something, surrounded by water on all sides of the room. She decided that she didn't want to know what it was. She turned around and walked in the other direction.    
  


“Ribbit, Ribbit. (Thank goodness I found you. I'm not as young as I used to be.)”

Nafi startled, but soon found the frog who… spoke. What is it with down here and non-speaking things suddenly speaking?

The frog continued, “Ribbit, Ribbit. (Excuse me human, I have some advice for battling monsters.)”

Nafi raised an eyebrow and asked, “Which is?” 

“Ribbit, Ribbit. (If you act a certain way, or fight till you almost defeat them, they may not want to battle you anymore. If a monster does not want to fight you, please… use some mercy, human,)” the frog answered.

Nafi nodded as the frog hopped away. She got back on track and went down the right hallway.

  
At the end of the hall to the left was another room, this one had a weak floor, marked by very obvious cracks across the purple tiles. Nafi jumped over them, landing next to another one of the frogs. 

The heart, actually she should probably be calling it soul, not heart. Anyway, her soul appeared and she took the same tactic as she did with the dummy, patting it on the head and apologizing for scaring it. The frog was obviously confused because it blushed before hopping off. Her soul disappeared.    
  
Finally, the regeneration from earlier came back to bite her as her stomach grumbled it was empty. She pulled out a veggie bar and continued on her way.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~

*Ring Ring* “Hello?”

“Hello! This is Toriel. For no reason in particular, do you prefer cinnamon or butterscotch.”

“... Both, I guess?”

“Great! Thank you. Be good!”

*Click*

“...What's cinnamon? Or butterscotch?”

~~~~~~~~~~

These traps were so simple, how did they ever stop anyone? That’s not to mention the strange collection of monsters down here, all of whom tried to fight her in some way or another. At least the surface undead actually made sense.

“Frogs, crying flies, giant carrots, wiggling moss slimes?” Nafi groused, “What’s next, Eyeballs and dancing cockroaches?”

She turned around to see some monsters. One of them was mostly eyeball and the other was a large cockroach wearing dance shoes.

They stared at each other for a bit.

“Umm…” the eyeball started.

“Shhh…” Nafi said as she backed up into the next room, “You saw nothing.”

~~~~~~~~~~

After a few more mind numbing traps, it can be excused why Nafi’s HUD saw the ghost before she did. A quick glance of the room showed no way past. She couldn’t even go under or over. The height of the ghost’s hover was just at that height she didn’t think she could jump over or crawl under.

“Z. Z. Z. Z. Z. Z. Z…” the ghost said. Was it snoring? Or trying to snore at least? Didn’t matter either way.

Nafi took a steadying breath and went to wake the dead.

“Excuse me? I need to get through here, would you mind moving?”

Her soul appeared as the ghost began crying. Ok, she did something wrong.

Health: 88, Defence: 10, Attack: 5, how do you kill a ghost?

She stepped back out of the tears, stashing her sword in her cape and holding up her hands. “Sorry for waking you,” she said.

“Sorry for being in your way...” the ghost replied.

Nafi stood there as the ghost kept crying, eventually realizing that he wasn’t going to move. Biting her lip, she tried to think of a way out of this situation. The only thing she could think of was comforting him, and so that was what she did.

“It’s ok, we all make mistakes.”

The ghost continued crying. “Oh...”

“Want to hear a joke?” Nafi tried.

“Ok...” the ghost said.

“One owl asked another, ‘Have you seen Jenny lately?’ The second said, ‘Whoo.’ ‘Jenny,’ the first one said. The second one replied, ‘I heard you the first time, she’s with Whoo.’”

‘Heh… Heh…” the ghost laughed. “Let me try…”

His tears started to float upwards, forming a top hat. “Do you like it…? I call it Dapper Blook...”

Nafi smiled and asked, “Nice?”

He smiled back and floated there for a few more seconds before saying, “I’ll get out of your way...” and floating through the ceiling. Her soul disappeared soon after

When the ghost didn’t reappear she walked past, muttering, “Where are you Toriel, this is getting creepy.”

~~~~~~~~~~

More traps, more monsters, man this was getting tedious.

  
Nafi stood in front of a dead tree when the cell phone rang again. She was reaching for the phone when Toriel came walking around the tree, hanging up quickly once she saw Nafi.    
  
“Oh, there you are. I was just coming to find you. Are you hurt?”    
  
“Healthy as can be,” Nafi said at 20/20 health. Looking around the tree and seeing a cottage, she asked, “Is that your home?” 

Toriel smiled. “Yes, come on in, I have a room prepared for you.”    
  
Nafi followed her into the cottage, her nose immediately smelling the unmistakable scent of a lived-in home and cooking pastry. Best thing was her eyes were finally freed from the assaulting purple. She took a moment to enjoy the sights and smells before following Toriel down a hallway to the right. 

Toriel opened the first door they came to explaining, “This will be your room for the time being, please make yourself comfortable.”    
  
Nafi cautiously entered the room as Toriel sniffed the air and ran off yelling, “My pie!”    
  
She checked over the room, under everything, in everything, on everything, and, just to be safe, did it again three times. Once certain the room was trap free she relaxed. She was surprised by a huge yawn bursting through her mouth and decided to try and take a nap.

She stuffed the bed up into the corner and removed her cape. With her back to the corner, sword gripped tight, and the cape as a blanket, she took a moment to think over her situation.

Trapped as a captive houseguest in a ruined city under the earth, full of simple traps she could solve in her sleep was not how she wanted to spend her twentieth birthday. 

She never did get what she wanted though, she mused as she drifted off.

  
At least the undead weren’t busting down the door.

  
~~~~~~~~~~   
  
Nafi was asleep one second and the next she was awake as Toriel moved into the room.    
  
She gripped the sword tighter, but otherwise stayed still. Toriel did nothing but put something on the floor before leaving.    
  
Nafi opened her eyes and sat up, and looked at the pie slice Toriel had left her. Her stomach growled it's want and she scrambled out of bed, readying a command to remove poison from her if it turned out the pie was poisoned.

She took a bite of the really delicious pie and, with no poison showing itself, finished it in a few minutes.

  
Using her HUD to find Toriel quickly, she was in the neighboring room, she decided to snoop. 

Passing by Toriel’s room, where the occupant was still awake and writing something in a book, she came up to the final room in the hallway marked 'under renovation’.

It was locked, but that didn't matter when she was able to just force the knob to turn. It was… under renovation, no surprise there. What was a surprise were the pictures strewn everywhere of other humans. Taking a moment to observe and count, she concluded there were six other humans the goat had taken care of. 

Then, on the wall, she found a picture of Toriel and two other goats taking care of a seventh child. As she went to get a closer look, she knocked loose another picture. It was blurred beyond recognition so what it was about was anyone's guess.

She put that photo back and looked at the one on the wall. They were happy, an emotion that wasn’t present in such quantities in the other pictures. 

Nafi left the room, pausing at Toriel's room, staring at the sleeping form.    
  
“You lost them, didn’t you,” she whispered. She closed her eyes and sighed deeply, moving out into the rest of the house.   
  
She followed the scent of pie, passing through the living room full of books and into the kitchen. Her eyes looked upon the majesty that was the rest of the pie.

“Oh, my, diamonds. That is one big pie.” 

  
~~~~~~~~~~   
  
When Toriel left her room hours later, she found Nafi reading her books with another slice of the pie half eaten. From the looks of it, Nafi had made a significant dent in the pie. Toriel smiled even as Nafi gave her no attention.    
  
She walked towards the kitchen, “I’ll make another pie.”    
  
~~~~~~~~~~

It’s been a week since Nafi first fell down here.   
  
She was very confused. Where were the creatures? No zombies, no creepers, no endermen, no anything. When asked, Toriel had said that there were skeletons down here, but somehow friendly?

Nafi couldn’t take much more of this.

  
Toriel was more worried than confused. What Nafi told her about the surface did not paint a pretty picture. Zombies? Exploding plants? Poisonous beings? No wonder Nafi was so jumpy and pulled her sword out at the slightest noise. Toriel had to keep her from trying to ‘improve’ the puzzles, but did let her fix the door she broke the day she first arrived.

  
Finally, Nafi had enough. She wanted to leave the Ruins.    
  
It started as any normal day for Toriel, until Nafi approached her when she was telling puns through the door at the exit of the ruins.

  
“And he said ‘these are in-crab-able crabs!’” she finished the joke.   
  
A voice on the other side of the door started howling with laughter, joined soon after by Toriel. 

Then she spotted Nafi walking down the hall towards her. She recovered quickly and said “Excuse me for a moment, I have something to attend to.”

She called over to Nafi, “Do you need anything?”   
  
Nafi glanced past her at the door before she got right to the point, “I would like to leave now.”    
  
Toriel sighed, stood up, and said, “I was afraid of that. Can you not stay?”    
  
Nafi straightened up, “I will go through you.” She hated having to do it this way, she would have preferred to sneak out. 

Toriel was very good at keeping her away from the exit.   
  
Toriel nodded, trying one last time to persuade Nafi, “Are you sure? It is dangerous out there. I… I can not lose another child.”    
  
Nafi pulled out her sword and held it tightly with still hands. “I am an adult.”    
  
Toriel conjured fireballs in each hand, eyes screwed shut. “You are.”   
  
Nafi’s soul appeared.    
  
There was a moment of silence, broken by worried questions from the other side of the door. 

Health: 700, Defense: 80, Attack: 8, wait, did the attack go down?

Toriel threw a wave of fireballs, Nafi deftly jumping over and slicing at Toriel. The attack didn’t hit but did throw Toriel off balance.   
  
Nafi continued to press her attack, slicing over and over again, desperate to end this quickly. Toriel barely managed to dodge most of the blows. Still, every once and a while she got hit.

525/700

350/700

175/700

To get Nafi off, Toriel started raining fireballs down upon her in larger waves. Nafi jumped back when one brushed her side and started focusing on dodging.

16/20   
  
Toriel kept up the fireball blitz for a good minute, Nafi unable to dodge every one.

12/20

6/20

As the barrage went on her aim got worse and worse as she tired. Eventually, she had to stop from exhaustion. 

Nafi watched as Toriel fell to a knee, barely able to hold herself up.    
  
“So, this is it,” Toriel laughed to herself, “This is how I die.” Nafi had no outward reactions other than heavy breathing from exertion. 

Inside, she compared the happy picture with who she saw before her.    
  
“I tried to protect you,” Toriel started, “Understand you and help you. I see now I am not the one who can. You protect yourself, I cannot understand you, and the help you need I cannot give.” 

She looked up at Nafi. “I hope I at least gave you comfort. Helped you to know not everyone wants to harm you.”    
  
Toriel hung her head as Nafi limped towards her. Looking upon Toriel with sorrow and well-hidden shame, she realized she didn’t want to do this. Now, at the end, she saw no other choice.   
  
“You did. Thank you, and I’m sorry.” 

Nafi raised her sword, hand steady and her eyes clear of tears she refused to believe were there. 

“You’re forgiven,” Toriel responded. 

A single tear made its way down Nafi’s cheek as she swung her sword down with a shout.    
  
Suddenly the door exploded, a heavy bit of rubble striking Nafi in the side of her head. She hit the ground hard, barely able to do more than watch as Toriel fell to the ground in front of her before she lost her fight with unconsciousness.

The last thoughts that crossed her mind didn’t fit the situation, but as she blacked out she thought, “Well that’s one way to get past the door.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Once upon a time, many times ago, there was a story. It started with children who lived in an orphanage in a small town at the base of Mt. Ebott.

It started with a hole, a barrier, and golden flowers. It started with Ruins and a mother goat.

We have the same start, we don’t have the same end.


	4. CHAPTER 3: Snowed In Skeletons

**CHAPTER 3: Snowed In Skeletons**

Nafi went from blissfully unconscious to painfully awake in a split second, sitting up quickly in shock. She immediately regretted it, as her brain felt like it was trying to pound through her skull. Only by sheer force of will did she not throw up before she landed back on the soft… Bed?   
  
She pushed through the pain and tried her best to observe her surroundings.   
  
She was some sort of cell, and it was probably her head making her think the bars were that far apart.

Seriously, who would make bars multiple feet apart?

On the other side of them, she could see her cape and its pockets looked untouched. There were two windows, both covered in snow. She herself was curled up on a dog bed, a dog bowl full of spaghetti sat nearby.   
  
The sight of food made her stomach growl with a painful reminder that the last time she ate was an hour before her fight with… with Toriel

No, don’t think about that, you're hungry and she’s most likely dead. 

Nafi’s console was unusable in her current state, so she was going to have to risk poison in her food. Crawling her way over and stuffing her hands in, Nafi started eating the spaghetti. 

It wasn't good by any stretch of the imagination but she had eaten worse to survive. 

  
"HUMAN! I DID PROVIDE YOU WITH UTENSILS!"   
  
Nafi cringed back at the thunderous voice, cracking open an eye to see who yelled. There was a skeleton. 

Oh this was bad

She was weaponless, barely staying conscious, and still really hungry.

  
"I DIDN'T MEAN TO STARTLE YOU HUMAN. YOU DON'T LOOK TOO GOOD, DO I NEED TO GET THE ASGORE CLONE?"   
  
"Shut u-up… Help..." Nafi croaked, hoping whoever was yelling would scare away the skeleton before it noticed her.

  
Thankfully, the skeleton did leave and she crawled closer to the spaghetti and continued eating. The door opened again.

"Nafi!" 

Was that? It couldn’t be. 

Toriel?

She felt a soft paw holding her up, the small twitches forcing more pain through her mind. 

"Where does it hurt?" Toriel asked.   
  
"H-head..." Nafi whispered. This was why she tried to avoid head injuries, they were ridiculously painful and impaired everything.    
  
Nafi looked through the green haze of Toriel’s healing and saw the skeleton again. The pain started to dissipate, blackness replacing it and she had moments to choke out a warning. 

“Tor…”

She didn't get beyond the first syllable before she lost the fight with unconsciousness.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~

_ “Mr. Pigums? Do you love Mrs. Pigums like daddy loves mommy?” _

_ “Oink.” _

_ “Better? Wow… Wonder what’s that like.” _

~~~~~~~~~~   
  
Nafi drifted between asleep and awake. 

As she climbed closer to awareness, she flashed back to her last whole memory, even though it was corrupted by pain. Was that truly Toriel? Was it someone pretending to be her? Was it just a painful delusion?   
  
If that was her... Hopefully her stories of friendly skeletons weren’t just stories.

  
Nafi opened her eyes with great difficulty, the first thing of note was her head wasn't pounding anymore. It was still there in the form of a dull throb, but it was easily ignored.

Second thing of note was her health.

17/20

Not great, but not bad.   
  
Third thing was she was still in the cell, and yes those bars were as far apart as she thought they were. At least she was on an actual mattress, it was even one of those good ones with the springs.   
  
"you up? great."   
  
Nafi looked over and ignored the flash of pain from her HUD activating. 

Health: 1, Defense: 1, Attack: 1, the weakest skeleton she had ever laid eyes on, shortest too if she was being honest.

Skeletons always have bows, shoot every one to two seconds, always try to get a clear line of sight, and occasionally ride spiders.

She rolled behind the mattress and out of sight.   
  
"hey, no need for that. i don't have a Bone to pick with you."   
  
She glanced around the room for whoever was speaking. It obviously wasn't the skeleton, it’s mouth wasn't even moving. When she looked back over the mattress, the skeleton was gone.   
  
She scrambled up and over the mattress to make a beeline for her cape. Systematically checking every pocket, she made sure everything was there, including the couple of veggie bars she ate during the process.

Nothing was missing except her weapons.

  
"Oh, this won't be good..." She muttered. Not that she needed them, punching was just as good as a sword.   
  
"Nafi! You’re awake!"   
  
Nafi whipped around and got a face full of fur as Toriel gave her a crushing hug. She gave one right back   
  
Pulling back to get a good look at the motherly goat, and to clear her mouth of fur, Nafi didn’t really like what she saw. Bandages held the right arm against her chest, the right shoulder was completely covered in them. 

Still, Nafi sighed in relief. She missed Toriel's head. She didn't kill her.   
  
Nafi gave Toriel another, non-crushing, hug, making sure to avoid the arm. "I thought I killed you..." She whispered   
  
"well you almost did," the voice from earlier spoke.

Nafi looked over Toriel’s shoulder.   
  
The only warning Toriel had that something was going to happen was Nafi tensing, before she was picked up and whipped around so Nafi stood between her and the short skeleton.   
  
Now that she got a better look at the bag of bones, she noticed the clothes. No skeleton she knew of wore a blue hoodie, black sweatpants, and pink fuzzy slippers. 

Her thought process ground to a halt, confusion reigning supreme. "Where is your bow? Why are you wearing clothes?" 

She realized that was a very stupid question as both the skeleton and Toriel started laughing.

  
"he he he. Tibia honest i've never owned a bow,” yes that voice was definitely coming from the skeleton, “i own a trom-Bow-ne though."   
  
It took Nafi a few seconds to get the puns, once she did she gave a short chuckle. She looked back at Toriel who was recovering from her laughing fit. “So friendly skeletons are a thing.

  
Toriel nodded, saying, "Yes, they are."    
  
"yo. name’s sans. sans the skeleton."

“He is the one I was telling puns to through the Ruins door,” Toriel added.   
  
“Nafi,” she introduced herself. Remembering the other voice she heard, she asked, “Is there a second friendly skeleton?”   
  
~~~~~~~~~~   
  
Yes, there were two skeletons. No, neither of them wielded bows. Yes, both of them wore clothes. 

Papyrus, Sans’ younger but much taller brother, was very loud all the time. Not just his voice was loud, but his attire too. Bright red gloves, boots, and short cape complemented the blue shorts and white chestplate. Everything but the cape also had a gold trim.

Health: 680, Defense: 20, Attack: 20, sometimes she hated getting stats for every person she looked at.

Still, that had nothing to do with her situation.

The healing magic Toriel uses doesn’t work properly on human brains, the reason her head still minorly hurts. She refuses to let Nafi leave the village until her brain is back in working order. Nafi would use the console to heal it quicker, but it also has the same issue.

  
So Nafi is stuck in the snow-filled forest village called Snowdin and she has to leave her weapons at the skeleton brother’s house.   
  
Her farms back home were probably filled with weeds at this point. Nothing she couldn’t eventually fix when she was all healed up.

The issue was that all of the magical healing played havoc with Nafi's system. 

Healing took a lot of energy, but most of it was already being used by the rest of her body. So, many times throughout the night, she had to get up and eat. Not only did this ruin her sleep, but she only packed so much food. Eventually, she had to make more.   
  
As she smashed the ingredients together, there was a knock on the kitchen wall. Nafi glanced over her shoulder to see Sans. 

"Couldn't sleep?" She asked.

"i could ask the same to you," Sans replied   
  
Nafi continued cooking, Sans leaning against the wall watching. Eventually, Nafi got tired of her silent watcher, snapping out, “If you’re going to stand there, you can at least say something.”

“why’d you fall down?”

Confused, Nafi looked back at him and asked, “Explanation please?”

  
Sans elaborated, “tori’s been telling us about the other fallen humans, each of them had a reason they fell. just wondering what yours was.”

She turned back to what she was doing and thought about it. “I didn’t even mean to honestly. It was my birthday and I wanted cookies, but didn’t have the coal to fuel my oven to cook them. I went to go mine some and was ambushed right at the top of the hole, falling in,” then she fired back with a question of her own, “So why you guys down here? Sun doesn’t agree with you?”

Sans was silent for an uncomfortably long time before saying, “tori didn’t tell you? humans were the ones to seal us down here a long time ago. everyone wants your soul ‘cause it’s the last one needed to break the barrier.”

A quiet “Oh” was Nafi’s only reaction for a while before she said, “We’ll come up with something else then.”

The silence after that was awkward, neither one wanting to look at the other. Sans broke the metaphorical ice by asking, “did you get the Cook-ies?”

Nafi chuckled, “Toriel’s pie is so much better than cookies.”   
  
~~~~~~~~~~   
  


Being stuck in Snowdin actually wasn’t as bad as she feared. Most of the monsters around here were animal or ice themed, one of the exceptions was a monster everyone seemed to dislike named Jerry, the other a fire monster who ran the restaurant named Grillby. Most of the animal monsters were bunnies and dogs.

The bunnies ran the shop and the inn and the dogs were the royal guard stationed in this area. Although the royal guard was supposed to be on the lookout for humans, lots of headpats and bellyrubs were a good bribe to get them to stay quiet.

Papyrus meanwhile was the apprentice to the captain of the royal guard, Undyne. He was also friends with her and couldn’t stand the thought of lying to her.

So he told her there was a human in Snowdin, stuck because of injuries.

Nafi so wanted to punch him but he was so earnest and sad that she settled with a light slap on the back of the head. Actually very light, she barely touched him, but it did make her feel slightly better. 

Now, the moment she left Snowdin she was going to be on the run from Undyne.

Better enjoy the calm while it lasts.

~~~~~~~~~~

Apparently the villagers weren’t all kindness and happiness. 

There was one monster, a deer with trees on his antlers named Gyftrot, in trouble. He had his antlers decorated by some monster children a while back. No one had been able to get the decorations off for multiple reasons. The first was because the decorations were so stuck on that it took a whole lot of twisting just to get them on in the first place.

The second was Gyftrot was an ornery old man and didn’t want help. Or he could just like the gifts everyone left him, who knows.

Nafi, itching for something to do while she was stuck, decided to make a machine he could use to get the decorations off himself.

She ended up getting lots of help with her endeavor.

It started with her following Gyftrot around, trying to figure out how the decorations were put on in the first place. Eventually she realized that, unless she knew how trees grew out of antlers, she wasn’t going to get anywhere.

She asked a bear monster who put the decorations on Gyftrot in the first place and was directed to snowflake-shaped bird monster cousins, Snowdrake and Chilldrake.

“What are Gyftrot’s antler trees like?” Nafi asked.

Snowdrake answered first, “They’re not actual trees, not like the ones around here anyway.”

“Yeah, no bark under the needles and the actual needles bent really easily,” Chilldrake followed up.

Nafi raised an eyebrow. “What would you call them then?”

“Feathers?” Snowdrake asked Chilldrake.

“Naw dude. I’d say something close to Bearstine’s fur,” answered Chilldrake.

Nafi had an idea and grabbed a handful of her hair to hold up asking, “Like my hair?”

“Yeah!” exclaimed Chilldrake followed closely by Snowdrake adding “A little stiffer but basically. Why are you asking by the way.”

Nafi answered truthfully, “I’m trying to figure out a way for Gyftrot to get the decorations off his own antlers.”

“Really,” both of them asked at the same time, “Can we help?”

Nafi looked at them and shrugged, “Sure. Ask around for mechanical parts or brushes or combs. Saves me the trouble.”

She basically needed to build something to brush hair. The hard part was building something to brush hair at a 360 degree angle.

With the cousins asking around with her for combs and brushes, they quickly found a brush meant to do just that, the issue was making it motorized.

An issue solved just as easily.

As the cousins asked around they had been asked why, and they had answered just as truthfully as Nafi.

“The human is trying to figure out a way for Gyftrot to get the decorations off his own antlers.”

So the entire village of Snowdin pitched in.

Sans had motors on one of his two sheds for some reason, the other shed was the poorly built cell she had first woke up in. 

The dog’s dog toys had a good strong rope as a part of one of them, a rope that was donated over.

The rabbits gave a few springs from a broken mattress from the inn.

Papyrus, in his quest to make a perfect trap, had decommissioned a puzzle where one of the pisces was a giant metal rod.

As she worked on the auto-brusher she gave him some tips on how to build traps and puzzles, conversations that the rest of the village eavesdropped into most times.

Soon, it was complete and ready for testing.

It was actually very simple, Gyftrot would put his antler in position, push on a peddle on the ground with his hooves, and the circular brush lowered around the tree hair brushing it. It also had a hook on the side where he could hook a streamer and pull to get it off the main portion of antler.

Once actually delivered to Gyftrot, he had some concerns.

“That thingamajig is not getting near my beautiful antlers!”

After a large amount of convincing, and a second public apology from the cousins, he finally agreed to try it.

The pride Nafi felt when that thing worked was only rivaled by the pride she felt when she got her first secret door to work.

The fact she got a fancy hair tie out of the deal that raised her Defense by three was just icing on the cake.

~~~~~~~~~~

One issue with doing something no one else could do, she became kind of famous. 

With that fame came fans.

“I can’t believe you actually got the decorations off Gyftrot,” the armless lizard monster kid named MK exclaimed for the umteenth time.

Nafi breathed hard through her nose in an attempt to reign in her annoyance before asking, “Do you parents know where you are?”

“Mom does! Hey, do you have to tell your parents where you are?”

She grit her teeth, “No.”

“Then I want to be like you someday,” he exclaimed joyfully, “Able to go where I want to go whenever!”

“No you don’t,” she spat as she grabbed the handle to Sans’ shed and yanked open the door. It was locked, but that never stopped her before. She entered and shut the door in MK’s face.

Leaning against the worktable he had in there, she ignored the old pain in favor of looking around the place.

There was some kind of machine in the corner, the tarp draped over it looking slightly burnt. The walls were covered in blueprints, the writing in some sort of code made of hands. Something stuck out of a drawer of the worktable.

She reached down and opened the drawer to get a better look. It was a child’s drawing of three figures, two others added by a more experienced hand. Scribbled along the bottom were the words “Don’t forget.” 

One of the added figures was the human child from Toriel’s happy picture, the other only vaguely familiar. Nafi looked at it for a few more seconds, flipping it over to see some diagram using the machine in the corner, before putting it back in the drawer.

She looked at the other things in there, but beyond more unreadable blueprints there was not much. Another blurred picture and a badge with an unknown symbol were the only things of note.

Another drawer had pictures of a younger Sans and Papyrus, and oh my lands they were adorable.

On the back of one of the pictures was a small blurb, written in the same hand code but the translation was below it.

“Once upon a time there were two brothers, they would become great.”

Realizing she probably shouldn’t be looking at this, she put everything back and vowed to herself not tell anyone about what she just saw.

She should also probably go apologize to Sans for breaking his door.

~~~~~~~~~~

20/20

Finally the day has come that she can leave. It was fun building that contraption and fixing Sans’ door, but it was now time to leave.

The brothers had kept her weapons in good shape, but she was down to one arrow after some annoying dog stole and broke the rest of them. She still had the bow and her sword, but one arrow is not that good. She’ll have to make more later.   
  
Standing near the entrance to Waterfall, Nafi prepared to say goodbye to Toriel and the skeleton brothers. Although, of the two of them, only Papyrus was there at the moment.   
  
“NYEHOO HOO HOO I’LL MISS YOU HUMAN!”

“Papyrus, I’m literally a phone call away,” Nafi told the dramatically crying skeleton.

“I KNOW BUT IT WON’T BE THE SAME,” Papyrus yelled

“It will be different not waking up to you making food,” Toriel added

Nafi held her arms open in a ‘what can I do’ gesture saying, “You can call me anytime you want. I’ll even call you if I need help on a puzzle or something.”

Sans walked up behind Papyrus and Nafi waved at him, adding, “And Sans has enough jobs everywhere that he can keep an eye on me.”

Without missing a beat, Sans said, “no i can’t, i don’t have eyeballs.”

“THIS IS NO LAUGHING MATTER SANS,” Papyrus shouted angrily at Sans, “I AM SAYING GOODBYE AND YOUR PUNS ARE RUINING THIS!”

“y-Unla thinking about this all wrong,” Sans pulled a bottle of ketchup out of his hoodie and took a swig, “it’s ‘i’ll Ketchup to you later’ not goodbye.”

Toriel said, “He’s got a point, we will see you later, right?”

Nafi smirked, saying, “Of course, I’m not going to get myself killed.”

They all shared a group hug, Papyrus the most enthusiastic of the four, before Nafi set off for the next area.

  
As she walked through a sudden fog, her foot hit stone, not snow.

She’s now in Waterfall and hunted by the captain of the royal guard, trained by Asgore himself, the king of the monsters.

This will be fun.


	5. CHAPTER 4: Running Water-fall

**CHAPTER 4: Running Water-fall**

Waterfall was very pretty, Nafi had to admit. The last vestiges of the fog framed the tall cliffs, glowing stones and glowing flowers, in the ceiling and on the ground respectively. 

Walking past a fish monster talking to one of the glowing flowers and an empty sentry station, she soon came upon a waterfall flowing across the path, carrying large rocks down into a hole. She carefully made her way to the other side and into a large patch of grass next to a cliff.

Health: 100, Defense: 2, Attack: 2, wait, isn’t that MK’s stats?   
  
A shadow fell over her hiding place as someone walked over to the ledge above her. She ducked down into the grass as someone else joined the first person on the ledge. Too far away and no line of sight, HUD wasn’t much use at the moment.  
  
“HELLO UNDYNE. I’M HERE FOR MY REPORT.”  
  
Nafi held her breath to prevent a gasp. Well, there’s Undyne.

“I told him to wait for longer. Papyrus you soft hearted fool,” Nafi mouthed in anger to herself, not wanting to take the chance of being overheard. She had hoped Papyrus gave her more time before letting her pursuer know she was out.

  
“A-AH, NO. THE HUMAN LEFT,” Papyrus stuttered out, and wasn’t that weird to hear him nervous.   
  
“Finally!” That was definitely Undyne, too bad her voice wasn’t loud enough normally to hear from down here as she said something after that exclamation.   
  
“NO! THERE IS NO NEED TO KILL HER, SHE’S FRI-” Papyrus was interrupted by Undyne, what she said again unintelligible.

Papyrus reluctantly agreed with whatever she said, “… YES UNDYNE…”    
  


Papyrus left and MK shifted next to her, allerting Undyne. Nafi stayed as still as possible.

Undyne leaned over the cliff and summoned a glowing spear, illuminating the fearsome armor she wore.

Health: 1500, Defense: 20, Attack: 50, don’t get caught, got it.

The spear disappeared and Undyne left.   
  
Letting out a sigh of relief, Nafi stood up and continued forward out of the grass. On the other side, MK popped out right behind her exclaiming, “Did you see that Miss Nafi! Undyne looked right at me!”   
  
Oh not more of this, please. 

Nafi exhaustedly replied, “So, she did. Aren’t you supposed to be at home?”   
  
“I let Mom know I was out, so they don’t worry,” he reassured her, “Hey! Both of you do awesome things, maybe you can team up at some point!”

  
“If you say so,” Nafi said, although she seriously doubted it. 

“If I can find her, I’ll ask her!” MK continued excitedly before he ran away, tripping but getting up quickly, to search for Undyne.   
  
She made to follow, but decided against being near him and his search for Undyne. Instead, she pulled out her bow to test something.

She knew there was only one arrow underground, hers. If she teleported an arrow to her, would it grab hers or someone’s off of the surface?

Taking an arrow and lining up her shot, she loosed the arrow into the top of the cliff. She saw the fletching quivering as it sunk deep into the stone, deep enough Nafi was certain that it could pierce the armor Undyne was wearing, even at that range.

Focusing on the arrow now in the cliff, she opened her console.

/give Nafriskenta arrow 1

The arrow disappeared from the cliff and reappeared in her hand, mostly undamaged. Definitely a useful trick.   
  
She put away the bow and arrow and started walking.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~   
  
*Ring Ring* “Hello?”   
  
“HELLO HUMAN! I CALLED WITH A QUESTION.”   
  
“What is it?”   
  
“WHAT ARE YOU WEARING?”   
  
“My normal clothes? W-.”   
  
*Click*   
  
“Papyrus? ...What was that all about?”   
  
~~~~~~~~~~

So far, Waterfall lived up to its name. Every puzzle incorporated a waterfall or flowing water in some way. Even the monsters were water or fish themed, bar a few odd ones. The bathtub monster was even nice enough to give her a bath, although with all the water around here it wasn't really needed.

As she was approaching a cave that's technically within a cave as they were underground, she spotted a sign just inside it.   
  
“Wishing room,” it read.

“Wishing room?” Nafi repeated questionably, “What does it mean by that?”

She entered the cave within a cave to see a room full of the glowing blue flowers.

She brushed by one and jumped back when it started to talk. “A long time ago, monsters would whisper their wishes to the stars in the sky. If you hopped with all your heart, your wish would come true. Now, all we have are these sparkling stones on the ceiling.”   
  
Experimentally, she tapped another, “Thousands of people wishing together can’t be wrong! The king will prove that.”   
  
Another and another, “c’mon sis! Make a wish!” 

“I wish my sister and I will see the real stars someday...”

She walked past a telescope and came to a dead end. She moved back and checked the telescope. On the lens of the telescope was written, “Check wall” with an arrow pointing up.

When Nafi pushed on the dead end it opened revealing a path and tablets on the wall. She barely made out what the first one said.

“The War of Humans and Monsters.”

She passed by the rest without reading them, stepping on a raft attached to a rope which floated to the other side of a dark river.

She stepped off the raft onto a long pier and a glowing spear immediately slammed down into the wood in front of her. Off to her left, on the bank of the river, Undyne summoned another spear.

Giving Undyne no chance to attack again, Nafi took off running down the pier.   
  
The problem with this plan was Undyne kept Nafi moving and dodging, leaving her unable to pull out her bow. It didn’t help that the pier weaved back and forth oddly so she had to focus on where to put her feet. 

Who made this stuff? It served no purpose!

She made it to a straight area and was able to pull out her bow and fire off her one shot.

It missed and Nafi ran off the pier and onto solid ground. The ground was covered in tall reeds and next to a cliff face that blocked Undyne's view as Nafi ran deeper. Soon, the runner deemed herself far enough into the reeds and crouched down to hide, pulling out her bow and an arrow in the short time she had before Undyne came into view.

/give Nafriskenta arrow 1   
  
The pursuer walked up through the reeds and Nafi pulled back on the bow string, newly returned arrow in hand, knowing she would have only one shot at this.

Health: 100, Defense: 2, Attack: 2, that’s MK not Undyne, don’t shoot! 

Nafi lowered her bow as Undyne stuck her hand in the reeds and lifted MK into the air by his head. Undyne let out a snort of frustration, dropped him, and walked off back the way she came. Once Nafi was certain Undyne was gone, she stood up and walked the opposite way out of the reeds.

MK followed her out, eyes bright and face shining. “Did you see that Miss Nafi!? Undyne touched me! I’m never washing my face again!”   
  
Nafi opened her mouth to talk but MK ran off, tripping and getting up on the way, before she could say anything.

“Don’t you not wash your face anyway?” she asked the empty air where MK had been.   
  
Sighing, she moved on down the path after a moment.    
  
She passed by some cheese encased in crystal and the sight of it made her stomach growl. She pulled out a veggie bar and continued forward as she ate. 

A few steps later, she came upon Sans.   
  
“hey ya,” he said as he saw her.   
  
Nafi swallowed the food that was in her mouth. “Didn’t I leave you at the start of Waterfall? I didn’t see you pass me by.”   
  
Sans shrugged, “i know some shortcuts. want to join me for grillby’s?”   
  
Nafi thought for a second. Grillby’s is back in Snowdin, so how would they get there? 

Well, Sans just said he knows a shortcut, so maybe this won’t take too long. Also, food is always good. 

She nodded as she stuffed the rest of her veggie bar in her mouth.

  
“great, follow me,” Sans said.   
  
She did so, wondering why they were going in the opposite direction of Snowdin, when suddenly they were walking in the entrance of Grillby’s. 

She choked a bit in surprise and internally screamed as she followed Sans to the bar.   
  
“i’ll take some fries,” Sans told the bartender, Grillby, before turning to her, “you want a burger or fries?”

  
She didn’t blame him for forgetting she was vegetarian, she never mentions it. The burger could also be made out of imitation meat, but she wasn’t going to eat it if she didn’t have to.

  
She swallowed the veggie bar and said, “Fries also please.”

  
Grillby nodded and walked away.   
  
Nafi turned to Sans, and whispered urgently, “I have multiple questions.”   
  
Sans leaned forward onto the bar, pulling out his bottle of ketchup. “then let’s Ketchup.” 

“You already used that one,” she knew he was silently laughing at her but carried on anyway, “One, why can you teleport? Two, how can you teleport? Three, why have I never noticed before?”   
  
Grillby walked back over with two orders of fries. Nafi immediately dug into hers, staring at Sans as she waited for the answers to her questions.   
  
Sans wasn't going to give them to her though and he asked her, “let me ask you a question, have you heard of a talking flower?”   
  
Nafi paused in her chewing and glaring, thinking of multiple things that could describe. She hesitantly nodded yes.   
  
“so you heard of the echo flowers then?”   
  
Nafi cleared her mouth. “The blue glowing flowers?” Sans nodded and Nafi continued, “That’s what those are called? Anyway, you nev-.”   
  
“SANS!”   
  
Nafi jumped, squishing the fry that was in her hand in surprise, telling herself it was just Papyrus and she didn’t need her sword nor to jump behind the counter and out of sight.   
  
“sup paps,” Sans said.   
  
Papyrus then noticed her, “HELLO HUMAN, DIDN’T EXPECT YOU HERE. I CAME TO RETRIEVE MY BROTHER.”   
  
She released a shaky breath and wiped the crushed fry on its brethren, eating said brethren afterwards.

“It’s fine, just didn’t expect it,” she said between mouthfuls.

Papyrus picked up Sans like a sack of potatoes, Sans muttering, “i feel like a bag of bones.” Papyrus tossed some gold pisces on the bar to pay for the fries, and moved towards the door before something occurred to him.

He turned to Nafi and said, “SAY, WE NEVER HAD A PROPER HANGOUT.”   
  
Nafi looked at him as she chewed the rest of the fries, both hers and Sans’. Once her mouth was clear she said “I lived in your house for about a week. I’d say that’s a proper hangout.”   
  
Papyrus nodded and continued towards the door, “OK THEN, THE ASGORE CLONE SAYS HELLO.”   
  


“Tell her I say hello back,” Nafi stated, following.

She blinked as she left the building and suddenly was back in Waterfall.

She whipped around looking for Sans or Papyrus, seeing nothing.

She screamed, “What the actual-!”

  
~~~~~~~~~~   
  
Waterfall was pretty, but even the prettiest things get boring if you stare at it for too long.

That stated, it was nice to suddenly have something new.   
  
Nafi came across a statue.

It was being rained on and looked so sad, but Nafi couldn’t think of anything to do. Then she looked ahead and saw a basket of umbrellas ment for a rainer part of the cave ahead. She grabbed an umbrella and set it on the statue, making sure it blocked the rain and wouldn’t move. 

Surprisingly, music started to play from the statue as if to thank her.

It wouldn’t surprise her if it was, given all the other things down here.   
  
After listening to the melody it played for longer than was probably necessary, Nafi picked up another umbrella for herself and moved forward into the rain.   
  
MK ran up to her from an alcove in the wall farther into the downpour, drenched totally. “Miss Nafi, can I come with you?” he asked, “I can’t carry an umbrella.”   
  
Nafi sighed and shrugged, “Sure.”

The armless lizard was too cute for his own good.   
  
In silence they made their way through the rain, stopping only long enough to enjoy the view of a castle in the distance from the top of a large cliff.    
  
They made it out of the rain and Nafi put the umbrella in another basket. Even without the rain, they still walked the path together. 

Then they reached a high ledge blocking the way. 

Nafi, tall enough to reach the top, climbed up. At the top, she turned back to look down at MK asking, “Need some help?”   
  
He shakes his head answering, “No, I know another way.”    
  
He runs off, tripping onto his face and getting up yet again, as Nafi continues onward.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~   
  
Not too long afterwards, she came to a maze-like set of piers floating over another set of maze-like piers. 

Who makes these piers? For what reason?   
  
She had only taken a few steps onto the wood when blue spears lanced up in front of her. She took off running down the maze of piers, dodging another set of spears from Undyne who stood below. Nafi ran as fast as she could, jumping over small gaps and dodging spears along the way.

It was the same issue as last time, neither of them could actually hit the other. Nafi’s only hope was to reach the ground on the other side, wherever that was. 

  
Then she hit a dead end.    
  
She spun around to run back but Undyne had climbed up onto the upper piers and blocked it. Pulling out her bow, Nafi prepared to fight for her life like many times before.

She never got a chance to.   
  
Undyne summoned a barrage of spears and threw them down but not at Nafi. The spears cut through the wood sending the section the human stood on, with her on it, plummeting into the darkness below.

The arrow flew out of her hand as she reached for solid ground. Both missed.   
  
“Cheater!” Nafi yelled as she hurtled through the air.

She spun around and caught sight of another bed of golden flowers below her.

She hoped them saving her wasn’t just a one time thing.

She hit the flowers.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~   
  
Once upon a time, a long time ago, there were brothers who lived in the palace as children of the king and queen.

Once upon a time, not that long ago, another child found the one that was left behind.

Once upon a time, there were introductions where a bed of golden flowers would be.

“Chara, Huh? That’s a nice name! My name is-”

“You're not actually Chara, are you? Chara’s been gone for a long time. Um, what is your name?”   
  
~~~~~~~~~~   
  
Nafi woke up with a name she didn’t know on her lips and a sorrow that came out of nowhere.   
  
She got up onto her hands and knees, looking around wildly. 

No one was there.   
  
“Hello?” she called.   
  
But nobody came.   
  
She shook off her unease and blank memories of hazy dreams to check if anything was broken. 

She fell on her front, so her cape was fine. 

The pile of flowers broke her fall again, so she was only at 18/20 health which was healing as she knelt there. 

Her sword was stabbed into the flowers next to her.

Her bow was sticking out of the water surrounding the flowers.

/give Nafriskenta arrow 1

The arrow was in her hand.

The pollen was in her hair again, but that was fixed with some water.

Better than she could have been for falling down again. At least it wasn’t an Enderman she was fighting this time.

Time to move on.    
  
~~~~~~~~~~

Sometimes, things she didn’t even know she did come to bite her in the butt. In this case, stationed at the end of the waterlogged area the flowerbed had been in, was a fuming, ghost possessed, training dummy. He accused her of scaring a ghost that had been in the dummy in the ruins.   
  
“Foolish, foolish, Fooli- ACK!” he screamed until she interrupted him.   
  
Grabbing the dummy by the nose and dragging his face down to hers, Nafi glared into his eyes. “Look. I apologized to your cousin in the ruins for scaring the dummy, I don’t think he would appreciate you putting words in his mouth.”   
  
She let go and the mad dummy fled.

  
As she climbed the hill out of the water she passed by the ghost from the ruins. She gave a friendly wave and headed deeper into Waterfall again.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~

The deeper she got into this place, the more of these caves within a cave she found.   
  
Inside this cave, her surroundings got darker and darker the farther in she got. How she wished her torch was still here.

Soon, she came up to a dead end, lit only by an echo flower. 

A curious tap revealed the phrase, “Behind you.”   
  
In one smooth motion she spun around, pulling out her bow and knocking an arrow to aim at Undyne right behind her. Undyne summoned a spear and they prepared to fight before-   
  
“YO!” MK interrupted, bursting onto the scene from a hole in the wall hidden by vines.   
  
Both ladies looked over at MK, both still ready to attack the other.   
  
MK, not reading the room right, asked, “Undyne! Miss Nafi! Who are you two fighting?”   
  
Undyne dropped her spear and grabbed MK, dragging him off as Nafi put away her bow and escaped through the new hole in the wall.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~

Nothing much happened as Nafi continued down the path, until the path turned into a very narrow bridge. She didn’t trust it, but had no other option.

She hadn’t crossed all the way over when MK came running up to her.   
  
“Hey, Miss Nafi?” he asked awkwardly, “Why does Undyne hate you?”   
  
She stopped and knelt down to be at MK’s height, making sure to stay in the center of the bridge. “I’m a human,” she said, “and Undyne hates humans.”   
  
“Why? You’re awesome,” he exclaimed.   
  
She shrugged, “I don’t know. Maybe she had a bad experience with one, maybe she heard bad stories.”   
  
MK got a look of determination on his face as he said, “Then I’ll show her how cool you are!”   
  
He ran back the way he came, Nafi opening her mouth to dissuade him. 

Until he tripped off the side of the bridge.   
  
“MK!”   
  
She sprung into action, running down the bridge and catching him before he fell too far. Dragging him back to safety, she picked him up and walked him back to the start of the bridge.

She put him down on solid ground and told him, “I can fight my own battles, you don’t need to. Get back to Snowdin and focus on making yourself great, not what makes others great.”   
  
MK solemnly nodded and ran back towards Snowdin, doing nothing but sidestepping Undyne when she stepped into his path.

Nafi, against her better judgement, called out, “Make sure he gets back home safely, will you? I’ll meet you at the exit of Waterfall.”

Undyne surprisingly nodded and they went their separate ways.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~   
  
The exit of Waterfall wasn’t that much farther up the path and Nafi didn’t have to wait long before Undyne appeared, climbing up the large stalagmite that marked it.

Nafi decided to be polite and only hover her hand over her bow as Undyne found her balance and started her grand speech.

“Seven,” she began, “Seven human souls, and King Asgore will become a god. Six. That's how many we have collected thus far. Understand? Through your seventh and final soul, this world will be transformed. First, however, as is customary for those who make it this far... I shall tell you the tragic tale of our people. It all started, long ago...”   
  
Nafi pulled out her bow and an arrow and was debating how long to let Undyne go for when Undyne interrupted herself… With an even longer monologue.   
  
“... No, you know what? SCREW IT! WHY SHOULD I TELL THAT STORY WHEN YOU'RE ABOUT TO DIE!?! NGAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! YOU! You're standing in the way of everybody's hopes and dreams! Alphys' history books made me think humans were cool... ...with their giant robots and flowery swordswomen. BUT YOU? You're just a coward! Hiding behind that kid so you could run away from me again!”   
  
“I literally sat here waiting for you!” Nafi yelled in anger.   
  
Undyne continued like she didn't hear, “And let's not forget your wimpy goody-two-shoes-shtick! Oooh! I'm making such a difference by hugging random strangers! You know what would be more valuable to everyone? IF YOU WERE DEAD!!! That's right, human! Your continued existence is a crime! Your life is all that stands between us and our freedom! Right now, I can feel everyone's hearts pounding together! Everyone's been waiting their whole lives for this moment! But we're not nervous at all. When everyone puts their hearts together, they can't lose! Now, human! Let's end this, right here, right now. I'll show you how determined monsters can be! Step forward when you're ready! Fuhuhuhu!”   
  
Nafi smirked and knocked her arrow, aiming up at Undyne. This wasn’t going to be an easy fight, but when was anything in her life.

She fought an Enderman and survived. She dodged her fair share of skeleton arrows and Creeper explosions. 

She can fight a knight.

“I don’t have to step forward, I’m already ready,” she called up, “Stand still please.”

She loosed the arrow and the battle begin


	6. CHAPTER 5: Undying Spite Vs Undying Determination

**CHAPTER 5: Undying Spite Vs Undying Determination**

Nafi’s arrow flew straight and true but Undyne jumped over it, heading for the ground.

The red and green soul appeared on Nafi’s chest, and she had the oddest feeling flow through her body. Then her soul turned fully green and her legs locked up.

Something green formed in front of her and, with every instinct screaming it was a Creeper, Nafi slammed her bow into it. The green shield that it actually was spun around her and blocked Undyne’s incoming form. Nafi quieted her instincts as Undyne jumped off the shield, landing in front of Nafi. 

The monster laughed and said, “As long as you're green you can’t escape! Unless you learn to face danger head-on... You won't last a second against me!”

Undyne ripped off her helmet and tossed a spear at Nafi who put the shield it it’s path.

/give Nafriskenta arrow 1

Nafi said nothing as she aimed down the arrow at the… Fish? It made sense, Undyne, fish monster, either way without the helmet it gave Nafi a perfect target. The arrow flew at Undyne’s head but instead of dodging, the monster caught it, snapping it in half.

She had no more arrows.

Then she heard the whistling of an arrow in the air from behind, and Nafi leaned to the side to dodge. It wasn’t an arrow. The spear sliced her arm from shoulder to wrist.

14/20

“GAH,” she exclaimed in pain but ignored it the next second in favor of forcing the shield into the path of the next spear, and the next, and the next. Spears came from every angle and Undyne herself seemed content to stand off to the side and control the spears. 

Unless Nafi could get within melee range this fight would end with the monster winning.

Except she didn’t need a weapon to attack.

“Is this all you got?” Nafi yelled as she spun the shield to face the next barrage of spears, “It’ll take much more than this to take me down!”

The spears sped up and she knew it was working.

“Change it up a little,” the human called, “I can do this all day! Do you even want to kill me?”

Undyne snarled and ran forward, summoning a spear which she slammed into the shield with enough force to send Nafi skidding back.

Pressing the attack, Undyne angrily yelled, “For years, we've dreamed of a happy ending… And now, sunlight is just within our reach! I won't let you snatch it away from us!”

Nafi responded by taking her bow and breaking it over Undyne’s head, sending the monster stumbling back 

1440/1500

The human’s soul returned to its normal red/green coloration, the shield disappearing and Nafi’s legs releasing as the extra green bled off.

Undyne recovered just as Nafi pulled out her sword and slammed the pommel into the monster’s face.

1360/1500

Recovering faster this time, Undyne yelled, “NGAHHH! Enough warming up!”

“I agree,” stated Nafi right before she turned around and ran.

She was not doing enough damage to warrant trying to fight.

Nafi started a zig zag pattern as Undyne tossed more spears after her, following right behind.

Undyne was fast, but Nafi was faster and soon they were running past a large sign saying, ‘WELCOME TO HOTLAND’. 

Then a phone rang, surprising both of them into stopping. Nafi realized it was her phone and answered the call, “Hello?”

“HELLO HUMAN!” Papyrus said on the other side, “I WAS JUST THINKING, WHAT IF WE HAD A HANGOUT WITH UNDYNE? MAYBE SHE WOULDN’T CHASE YOU.”

Nafi glanced behind herself, surprised Undyne wasn’t still chasing her at the moment. She turned her attention back to the phone and replied, “I’m actually running from her right now.”

“OH. WOULD YOU STILL LIKE TO HANG OUT WITH HER?”

“...Maybe.”

“OK! I’LL MEET YOU OUTSIDE HER HOUSE. SEE YOU THERE!”

“Papyrus-”

*click*

Nafi pulled the phone from her ear and gave it a look.

Undyne called out from behind her, “Are you finished?”

Nafi called back as she put away the phone, “Yeah, I’m done.”

They stood there, looking at each other for a few seconds, before continuing their chase past the sign.

The air became hotter and hotter before they came out into a comparably giant cavern, the bottom of which was a massive lava lake. The ash rising from the lava got into the wound on Nafi’s arm, lancing pain through the entire thing.

They passed by Sans sleeping at a sentry station, Undyne stopping to yell at him for sleeping as Nafi continued, running across a bridge. On the other side an old water cooler sat, and she hoped that Undyne would stop long enough for her to wash her arm. 

She needn’t have worried however, as Undyne wasn’t fairing much better. Steam rose off her armor and she slowed down, never actually making it over the bridge.

“Too… Hot…” The fish monster groaned.

She fell over with a loud CLUNK, causing Nafi to look behind her. Nafi regretfully sighed before dragging herself over to the water cooler and retrieving a cup of water to pour on Undyne. 

She didn’t bother to see if Undyne recovered before she went back to the water cooler to get another cup of water for herself. She poured the water on her wound, hearing Undyne get up and walk away behind her. 

Not wanting to be here with an open wound, she followed Undyne back towards Waterfall. She stopped under the sign and sat down. Using her sword to cut the sleeve off her arm, she planned to use it as a bandage. 

“hey kid,” Sans said as he walked over, getting her attention and causing her to stop. He handed her a roll of bandages and added, “you looked like you needed these.”

Nafi nodded and placed the cut sleeve off to the side as she took the role. “Thanks.”

As she dressed the wound, she thought back to the fight, cursing herself for impulsively destroying her bow. That was her only bow and, because she didn’t know where another one was, using her console to give herself one was risky at best. Same with more arrows.

At least it wasn’t her sword.

With the wound dressed and no one around to see her do this, she pulled up her console.

/effect give Nafriskenta Regeneration 20

Again, she did her best to ignore the pain. Her frantically wandering mind settled upon Papyrus’ offer and she found herself seriously considering it.

She actually cared for Papyrus, as much as she wanted to deny it. The idea of leaving him waiting outside someone’s house didn’t sit right.

18/20

Getting up, she headed back into Waterfall.

Where would Undyne’s house be?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After walking back through almost half of Waterfall, Nafi eventually found Papyrus standing outside a fish themed house.

“I’m here,” she said as she approached.

Papyrus turned to look at her and exclaimed, “YOUR HERE! I KNEW YOU WOULD COME,” he handed her a golden bone with a red ribbon tied to it, “GIVE HER THIS. SHE LOVES THESE.”

She took the bone and inspected it as Papyrus knocked on the door. The bone wasn’t anything special. As Papyrus and Undyne talked in the background, Nafi decided that it must be food.

“Hey Papyrus! Ready for your extra-private, one-on-one training?”

Nafi bit the bone.

“YOU BET I AM. I EVEN BROUGHT A FRIEN- HUMAN WHAT ARE YOU DOING.”

Nafi looked up with the bone in her mouth, seeing both monsters staring at her. Undyne wasn’t wearing her armor anymore, rather she was wearing a simple black tank top and shorts. She looked much skinnier without her armor Nafi noted. 

Health: 1450/1500, Defense: 10, Attack 10, the armor and spear really upped her stats.

After the half second it took for Nafi to process the new information, she removed the bone and said, “I thought it was food. It wasn’t.”

There was a very awkward silence, but eventually Undyne ground out, “Why don’t. You two. Come in?”

She stepped back into her house, leaving the door open for them. Papyrus wiped his feet on the welcome mat before following her inside. Nafi stood there with the bone, already regretting her decisions but copied Papyrus.

Undyne’s house had a tasteful blue and yellow checkered floor with a kitchen on the opposite wall, a piano near the left wall, and a table and chairs near the right wall. It reminded Nafi painfully of her own home in some ways, the only difference being Undyne has windows. 

“MY FRIEND GOT A GIFT FOR YOU, ON HER OWN.” Papyrus pulled out another golden bone and handed it to Undyne. “THIS ONE’S FROM ME THOUGH.”

Nafi wiped the bone on her shirt before handing it to Papyrus to hand to Undyne. Undyne took them and gave an awkward half smile, “Uh… Thanks. I’ll put, uh, them with the rest.”

Walking over to a drawer in the kitchen area, she deposited them, trying not to touch the bitten one more than required. Once finished, she asked with fake enthusiasm, “So are we ready to start?”

Papyrus started to speak almost before Undyne finished, “WHOOPSY DOOPSY, I JUST REMEMBERED! I HAVE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM!! YOU TWO HAVE FUN!!!”

He then charged at a window and jumped through it.

Undyne and Nafi looked at the broken window and then at each other.

Nafi asked, “Does he do that often?”

Undyne shook her head dumbly.

Eventually she recovered and, glowering at Nafi, said, “So why are you here? To rub your victory in my face? To humiliate me even further?”

“Because if I didn’t Papyrus would be sad?” Nafi interrupted, “Trust me, I don’t want to be here either.” 

Undyne seemed to glower even more at her, before giving a not friendly smile. “Oh-ho-ho-ho. I just had an idea. You’re on My battlefield now, and I’ll Tell you what’s going to happen. We’re going to hang out. We’re going to have a good time. We’re going to become ‘friends’. You’ll become so enamored by me… You’ll be humiliated by your actions! Fuhuhuhuhu! It’s the perfect revenge!!!”

Nafi stared at Undyne, eyes half lidded until the monster recovered from her revenge monologue, regaining composure and putting on a friendlier grin, “Erm...Why don’t you have a seat.”

Hesitating for a second before complying, Nafi walked over to the table and sat, keeping one eye on Undyne at all times. 

Out of sight, behind the table, a giant sword laid on the ground and, once she noticed it, Nafi nodded in appreciation, saying, “Nice sword you got there.”

Undyne chuckled, “Yeah. Humans suck, but their history… kinda rules. Case in point: This Giant Sword!”

Nafi barked out a laugh, replying, “Don’t I know it. Some of the stuff we could make was awesome. My case in point: cars. Would have made my life so much easier.”

“I don’t see what’s so good about them, but Papyrus loves them,” Undyne shrugged,” Well if you’re comfortable, I’ll get you a drink.” 

Undyne grabbed a few things out of her fridge and set them on the kitchen counter. The things from the fridge were: a white sugar container, a yellow bottle of stuff, a box labeled hot chocolate, and some tea boxes. 

“So, what do you want?” she asked.

Nafi studied her options. The sugar wasn’t a drink, no clue what the yellow bottle was so that was out, and the hot chocolate box looked empty. That left one option. 

“I’ll have the tea, please.”

Undyne smiled, “Coming right up!”

As Undyne busied herself making the tea, Nafi tried to think of something to talk about. Never actually having to make friendly small talk was actually an issue now, who would have guessed? Eventually she realized she had no ideas and she decided to ask Undyne, ”So, what do we talk about?” 

Undyne hummed in thought as she put water on to boil. She leaned against the counter and said, “One thing I was wondering, Papyrus mentioned it was Sans who brought you in very injured. How did that lazybones hurt you that much, or was it something else?”

Nafi answered truthfully, “I was on the other side of the Ruins door trying to... ‘convince’ the caretaker to let me go when the door exploded and part of it hit me in the head.” 

In her head she added, “Although he probably was the one to explode it.”

Undyne raised an eyebrow, before the water started to boil and distracted her. She grabbed a cup from the sink and said, “Ok, it’s done.”

She poured some of the tea into the cup as Nafi leaned back into the pretty comfy chair. Undyne walked over and placed the tea in front of Nafi and sat opposite her, adding, “Careful, it’s hot.”

Nafi blew on it and mimed taking a sip, not really wanting to drink but not wanting to insult Undyne. 

“It’s good right?” Undyne said, “Nothing but the best for my Absolutely Precious Friend!”

Nafi awkwardly nodded as she mimed taking another sip, and stated “It’s pretty good.”

Undyne chuckled, saying, “It’s funny you like that tea, it’s Asgore’s favorite. But unlike him, you ain’t no wimp!” She calmed down, “... Sort of.”

Nafi put the cup down, this was a chance to find out something about who she would be fighting at the end. “Well if he is the ruler down here,” she started, “He has to be strong right? Stronger than just taking a spear to the arm and still fighting at least?”

Undyne nodded, “Definitely. When I was younger, I was a pretty hot-headed kid. Once, to prove I was the strongest, I tried to fight Asgore,” she smirked, “Emphasis on TRIED.” 

She looked off to the side, lost in memories and Nafi started taking mental notes. “I couldn’t land a single blow on him! What’s worse, the whole time, he refused to fight back! I was so humiliated... Afterwards, he apologized and said something goofy,” She mimicked what Nafi could only assume was Asgore’s voice, “‘Excuse me, do you want to know how to beat me?’ I said yes, and from then on, he trained me. One day, during practice, I finally knocked him down. I felt… bad. But he was beaming. I had never seen someone more proud to get their butt kicked.” 

Undyne laughed before she continued, “Anyway, long story short, he kept training me and now I’m the head of the Royal Guard. I’m the one to train dorks to fight! Like...uh… Papyrus.”

Nafi glanced out the window, and suddenly her HUD yelled some stats at her.

Health: 680, Defense: 20, Attack: 20, that was Papyrus right outside the window.

She had an idea and asked, “Could I get a taste of how you train Papyrus?”

Undyne glanced at her, then stood up rapidly, “Hey that’s a great idea! Papyrus was supposed to have his cooking lesson right now and since he’s not here to have it, you’ll have to have it for him!” 

She jumped into the air, surprising Nafi and causing her to hide under the table to prevent the flying monster from landing on her. Undyne hit the ceiling and landed on the kitchen counter. Running across it, she knocked everything left on it except the teapot onto the floor.

“That's right!” she shouted, “Nothing has brought Papyrus and I closer than cooking! Which means if I give you his lesson, We’ll Become Closer Than You Can Ever Imagine!!!”

She looked around for Nafi and saw her under the table, which caused her to yell, “Fuhuhuhu! Afraid? We’re going to be best friends!” 

Undyne jumped over and tossed the table to the side, yelling, “Come on!” 

She picked Nafi up and jumped next to the counter. Nafi was set down and Undyne started instructing, “Let’s start with the sauce.”

Stomping her foot hard enough to shake the house, Undyne, somehow, caused two tomatoes, a carrot, and a banana to fall from the ceiling. “Envision these vegetables as your greatest enemy! Now, Pound them to dust with your fists!!”

Nafi looked at the assembled food items and closed her eyes.

She breathed in. She breathed out. She screamed and punched one of the tomatoes with her full strength. It splattered all up the wall and the counter broke under her fists. If only Zombie skulls broke like that.

Undyne laughed uproariously, “Nice! We’ll scrape this into a bowl later.”

Stomping again, Undyne caused more things to fall from the ceiling. This time it was a pot and a box of spaghetti that fell onto the stove. She got excited and started yelling again, “Homemade noodles are the best, but I just buy store brand! They’re the cheapest! NGAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!”

Nafi looked at her with raised eyebrows until Undyne calmed down and said, “Uhh… just put them in the pot.”

The human turned to the new things, wondering if she should admit she had no idea what she was doing. Deciding against it, she broke the box in half to make it fit inside the pot and dropped it in, noodles inside and all.

She had to admit it made a satisfying clank as it hit the bottom.

Undyne turned on the stove, the box inside almost immediately catching on fire. “I like your style! Now we stir, the harder we stir the better it is!”

Surprised at Undyne’s lack of comprehension, Nafi exclaimed, “It’s on fire!”

“Then I will!” Undyne replied. She pulled out a spear and stabbed the pot until it was a broken pile of metal and flames, “Now we turn up the heat! Let the flames symbolize your passion!”

“It’s still on fire!” Nafi yelled.

“AND WE WANT MORE!!!” Undyne yelled back.

Undyne grabbed the stove knob and turned it so hard it came off. The fire grew higher and started to lick the walls, burning them and spreading the fire around the room.

Nafi looked at Undyne and said, “Now everything is on fire.”

Undyne looked upon her burning house with a strained smile. 

“So, what’s next?” the monster who just burned her own house down and was still inside asked, “Scrapbooking? Friendship bracelets?”

“Getting out of the burr-.” Nafi started only to be interrupted as Undyne explosively sighed.

The monster slumped and said, “Oh who am I kidding, I really screwed this up, didn’t I. I can’t force you to like me, human. Some people just don’t get along with each other. I understand if you feel that way about me. And if we can’t be friends… that’s ok. Because… If we’re not friends...” 

Undyne shot up and looked at Nafi with a bloodthirsty smile yelling, “IT MEANS I CAN DESTROY YOU WITHOUT REGRET!”

Nafi jumped back as her soul came out and Undyne summoned a spear continuing, “I’ve been defeated... my house is in shambles… I even failed to befriend you. That’s it. I don’t care if you’re my guest anymore. One final remac-.”

Nafi interrupted Undyne this time, shouting “Are you INSANE?!”

She sprinted forward, dodging the spear, and hoisted Undyne over her shoulder. Spinning around, Nafi adjusted her hold on Undyne and threw her like one of the monster’s spears through the window Papyrus had gone through earlier.

Papyrus, who had moved back from the window when the fire started, caught Undyne as she flew. “UNDYNE WHA-,” He started.

He got no farther as Nafi came out of the window hitting Papyrus. He fell over with Undyne in his arms and Nafi on top of both of them. 

1440/1500

670/680

16/20

After taking a second to recover, Undyne pulled herself out from underneath the pile. Nafi punched the ground next to Papyrus’ skull and pushed herself up, straddling his breastplate. She grabbed the back of Undyne’s tank top and pulled her back and around to face her. 

Undyne’s eyes widened as she realized what was coming at her seconds before Nafi’s fist met her face.

1400/1500

Nafi was pissed.

She stood up, leaving Papyrus on the ground and walked over to Undyne’s downed form.

There were very few things that made her angry, death by pride was one of them.

“Do you have any idea how Stupid that was?! How Idiotic you are being?! Was me running away from you Such a blow to your pride that you had to risk your Life to fight me in a BURNING BUILDING?!” 

Undyne tried to get up but was sent back down to the ground with a low powered kick by Nafi.

1390/1500

Nafi wasn’t done yet, “Pride is nothing to RISK YOUR LIFE FOR! Pride is the stuff that makes you do Idiotic things just to make yourself feel better. Pride is the stuff that makes you think you're better than you actually are. Pride is the stuff that makes you try to do something that you can’t! Pride makes Fools and only a fool Fights in a BURNING HOUSE!”

With a rustle of bones, Papyrus got up. Nafi’s looked back at him and slowly exhaled, reminding herself that these weren’t the people she was used to dealing with. Looking back at Undyne as she tried to get up again, Nafi took a second to calm. 

Once she was certain she wasn’t going to punch something, she said, “Confidence isn’t bad. When you know what you can do, you do it. I’ve seen too many killed by foolish pride telling them that they can do something they can’t.”

She walked past Undyne and back towards Hotland, stopping long enough to say, “By the way, you won. Papyrus has my phone number, call me if you want a proper spar.”

Nafi looked back as she turned a corner to see Undyne smiling at her.

She smiled back.


	7. CHAPTER 6: Fame In The Metta-Tons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know Alphys is a girl in the game. Did you know there are species of lizard that can change genders?

**CHAPTER 6: Fame In The Metta-Tons**

Nafi turned the last corner and the Hotlands sign came into view. She stopped next to where she had patched herself up earlier, marked by a small blood stain, and pressed her forehead against the rock wall. 

Thoughts whirled inside her head and ignoring them wasn’t working anymore. She needed a moment to just think. 

There was one question that had been bugging her since her fight with Undyne at the end of Waterfall, why didn’t she kill Undyne? Undyne wasn’t wearing a helmet and her neck was exposed and Nafi had a sword, why was Undyne’s head not separated from her body? Well, the answer she found was simple, she respected the monster knight. Sure she could pretend it was because she didn’t want to anger Papyrus or make him sad. She could even say that she wasn’t confident in being able to hurt Undyne or they were friends in a past life. 

Nafi wasn’t one to lie to herself, and even if she was, that last one was more crazy than even she could delude herself into thinking.

No, Undyne had earned Nafi’s respect with her dedication to her race.

In fact, all of them, Undyne, Papyrus, Sans, Toriel, everyone had weaseled their way into her heart and made her care. Something she had tried her best to avoid doing since her trust had been broken for the umpteenth time. 

Unnoticed by her, Sans stepped up next to Nafi.

In fact, when was the last time she had met anyone who cared for someone else? Her parents probably did, or at least did a good impression of caring for their spawn. Other than them, who else was there? No one she knew at least.

Yet, everyone here, they cared. Undyne cared for Papyrus, and him for her. Same with Sans and Papyrus. Toriel cared for Nafi, even when she was trying to kill the monster. She cared so much that death was almost welcomed if it would help Nafi. Snowdin cared for Gyftrot, even if they couldn’t help. The frog in the Ruins ran after her to tell her to show mercy, not for her, but for others.

She cared for them all right back.

Sans moved to Nafi’s other side.

Maybe the thought of being friends in a past life wasn’t so far fetched if almost complete strangers broke through her shell as quickly as they did.

When was the last time anyone on the surface tried to be friends? Wasn’t there one famous dude who had some sort of hermit society? What was his name? Didn’t it start with an X?

Sans moved behind her and said, “you seem to be stuck between a Rock and a Bone Face.”

Nafi dove to the side and spun around pulling out her sword. Once it registered it was Sans, she put away her sword and exclaimed, “Sans! Don’t surprise me like that.”

He backed up and stated, “i’ve been standing here for a few minutes, thought you knew, and i got Bone tired waiting,” he became concerned, “you okay?”

She sighed, leaning back against the wall and looking vaguely up before answering, “I was just organizing thoughts.”

He hummed and said, “i’m not one for organization, i prefer to leave things out.”

Looking over with a raised eyebrow, Nafi asked, “Is that your attempt to get me to tell you what I’m thinking?”

There was a moment's pause before Sans asked back, “is it working?”

They shared a chuckle and she decided to humor him. “Just reflecting on how different the culture is down here. Toriel fought to keep me safe, even when I almost killed her. You two gave me a home and all of Snowdin now thinks I’m a hero for making a simple machine. Even Undyne, with all her pride, fights for others and not herself. Most of the time at least. On the surface, it’s everyone for themselves, desperately trying to be the most useful. Become famous for your usefulness and less people will want to kill you and more will protect you from the undead or others.”

“huh,” Sans said, “mettaton’s actually better than them, at least he’s Humerus.”

“Mettaton?” Nafi asked.

“the only celebrity the underground has by virtue being the only one who wanted to be one.”

She hummed before she straightened up, stating, “Well, that’s enough thinking. I do have to keep moving.”

Sans took his spot at his sentry station as Nafi crossed over the bridge again and walked past the water cooler.

Not far past, she came to a three-way fork. One path was blocked by some guards, one seemed to lead down to a river in the distance, and the last led into a large building marked, “LAB”. Since the other two paths were unhelpful, she entered the lab.

It was dark inside, the only light was a screen on the left wall. Walking over to the screen, Nafi saw a picture of… her back. 

She stepped forward and the picture mirrored her movements. 

She waved an arm and the picture waved too.

It was a real time video of her. 

Without the lights on, she couldn’t find the camera, but who would be watching her? More specifically, why?

She continued farther into the building and was momentarily blinded when the lights came on. She jumped back far and was in the air when she realized it wasn’t a creeper explosion. She landed and blinked rapidly to let her eyes adjust to the light. Once her eyes weren't in pain, she saw a short, yellow, bipedal lizard wearing a lab coat and glasses.

The lizard turned towards Nafi and started walking before noticing her standing there. 

“Oh. My lands,” the lizard said, panicked, “I didn’t expect you to show up so soon! I haven’t showered, I’ve barely dressed, everything is messy, and…”

The lizard reflexively started to do breathing exercises and Nafi had a sneaking suspicion why the camera was trained on her.

Once calmed down, the lizard introduced himself, “Umm… H-h-h-hiya! I’m Dr. Alphys. I’m Asgore’s royal scientist!” Alphys seemed to panic again slightly, “B-b-b-but, ahhhh, I’m not one of the ‘Bad Guys’! Actually, since you were dragged out of the Ruins, I’ve, um… been ‘observing’ your journey through my console.”

Nafi interrupted by pointing back at the large screen. Console made her think of hers and she just wanted to check.

He blushed, “Y-y-yes that’s it. I was originally going to stop you but watching someone on a screen really makes you root for them. S-so, ahh, now I want to help you! Using my knowledge, I can easily guide you through Hotland! I know a way right to Asgore’s castle, no problem!”

She didn’t trust Alphys at all, doubly so because this was too good to be true. She asked, “Do I have to pay you? Like, answer questions or do tests?”

Alphys’ eyes widened, “N-no, no nothing like that, unless you want to. I am curious about s-some things... B-b-but I want to help you first!”

The room suddenly shook, Nafi straining to hear an explosion that didn’t happen as Alphys muttered, “This wasn’t supposed to happen...”

The room shook again and Alphys quickly explained, “I forgot to mention that I had made an entertainment robot and ended up giving it some anti human measures.”

The room shook a third time as Nafi yelled “What?!”

Alphys yelled back, “I tried to remove them! But I made a mistake and now Mettaton is an unstoppable killing machine and won’t listen to me!”

The room shook a fourth and fifth time as Nafi wondered what the celebrity had to do with this. Then the lights went out again and Alphys whispered, “Oh no.”

A robotic voice shouted through the dark “OOHH YES! DID I HEAR SOMEONE SAY QUESTIONS? WELCOME BEA-U-TIES…”

A bright spotlight turned on, illuminating a boxy robot with a red and yellow grid on the front, long noodly arms, one holding a microphone, and a single wheel holding the entire thing up. Behind the robot was a large hole, probably the entry point and why the room had been shaking. Bringing the microphone up, the sentence was continued, “TO TODAY’S QUIZ SHOW!”

The rest of the lights came up suddenly yet again, a beam shining right in Nafi’s eyes. She dodged to the side and threw an arm up across her eyes when the purple of an Enderman’s eyes glinted, only to relax when she saw the rest of the confetti. 

She lowered her arm slowly, adjusting to the spotlight in her face and taking in everything going on. Confetti rained from above, multicolored lights projected spinning circles on the walls, and a giant glowing sign lowered from the ceiling. 

The robot continued introductions, “OH BOY, I CAN ALREADY TELL IT’S GONNA BE A GREAT SHOW! EVERYONE GIVE A BIG HAND FOR OUR WONDERFUL CONTESTANT!” 

Nafi started back towards the door, keeping eyes on the robot that clapped along with canned applause. Was this Mettaton?

Health: 9999, Defense: 999, Attack: 10, basically immortal, great.

“NEVER PLAYED BEFORE, GORGEOUS?” Mettaton asked in Nafi’s general direction as she backed up, “NO PROBLEM! IT’S SIMPLE! THERE IS ONLY ONE RULE. ANSWER CORRECTLY...” 

Nafi found her escape route blocked as Mettaton suddenly sped into her path.

“OR YOU DIE!!!”

Nafi jumped back, landing just as her soul appeared. With her soul came electric beams, pinning her in on all sides. Mettaton rolled back to his starting position, and Nafi saw Alphys following behind and staying just out of sight.

Mettaton pulled out a sheaf of papers from somewhere and called, “LET’S START WITH AN EASY ONE!! WHAT’S THE PRIZE FOR ANSWERING CORRECTLY? A: MONEY, B: MERCY, C: NEW CAR, D: MORE QUESTIONS.”

During the question, Alphys in the back waved his hands to get Nafi’s attention. Once she looked over Alphys’ way, he stopped waving and made a letter with his hands. 

Confused, Nafi said out loud, “D?”

“CORR-ECT! SOUNDS LIKE YOU GET IT,” Mettaton announced over more canned applause as Alphys gave a thumbs up.

So that’s how this was going to work. Mettaton gave questions, Alphys gave answers. Something seemed wrong about that, but if trusting Alphys got her through this then she would trust Alphys. For now, at least.

“HERE’S YOUR TERR-IFIC PRIZE,” the robot continued, “WHAT IS THE KING’S FULL NAME? A: LORD FLUFFYBUNS, B: FUZZY PUSHOVER, C: ASGORE DREEMURR, D: DR. FRIENDSHIP.”

So Asgore’s last name was Dreemurr, probably not useful but information was information. Nafi didn’t even need Alphys’ help as she answered, “C.”

Mettaton cheered again, “CORR-ECT WHAT A TERRIFIC ANSWER! ENOUGH ABOUT YOU. LET’S TALK ABOUT ME! WHAT ARE ROBOTS MADE OF? A: HOPES AND DREAMS, B: METAL AND MAGIC, C: SNIPS AND SNAILS, D: SUGAR AND SPICE.”

That was a question she needed help for, good thing Alphys knew the answer, having built one and all.

“B.”

“TOO EASY FOR YOU HUH? HERE’S ANOTHER EASY ONE FOR YOU…” 

What followed was a long stream of words about trains, time, and math. Nafi didn’t even bother to try and follow, just glancing over at Alphys as he finished the calculation and gave the answer.

“D.”

“WON-DER-FUL! I’M ASTOUNDED, FOLKS! NOW...”

A jar came flying out of nowhere and shattered on the floor, releasing a giant group of flies and sending Alphys into a frenzy trying to catch them before they escaped. 

“HOW MANY FLIES WERE IN THAT JAR? A: 54, B: 53, C: 55, D:52.”

Alphys wasn’t able to help this time and Nafi was on her own with a frankly unfair question. Which letter hasn’t been the answer yet?

“A?”

“CORR-ECT! WOW YOU’RE SO LUCKY TODAY! LET’S PLAY A MEMORY GAME.” 

Mettaton pulled out a picture of a frog monster from the Ruins, although the picture was mostly covered, “WHAT MONSTER IS THIS? A: FROG-...” 

“A,” Nafi interrupted, the answer obvious, or so she thought. 

Alphys hid his face in the new jar of recollected flies as Mettaton sent a beam of electricity into Nafi, yelling over Nafi’s muffled screams, “WRONG! THAT’S MY FAVORITE SHIRT. THE ANSWER WAS D: ME.” 

10/20

The robot pulled the cover off the picture revealing himself wearing a shirt with the frog face on it. 

Nafi shakily stood up, noticing that while Mettaton was distracted throwing the picture away Alphys slipped something into the stack of papers.

“AND THE NEXT QUESTION! ROBOTIC TUNA ARE THE FIRST SPECIES OF ROBOTIC FISH. THEY SWIM THE ROBOTIC STREAMS… WAIT, THIS ISN’T A QUESTION.”

“That’s for making me clean up the flies,” Alphys called from the background.

Mettaton tossed the paper away, saying, “APOLOGIES VIEWERS, PRANKS IN THE WORKPLACE. WILL YOU GET THE ACTUAL QUESTION? WOULD YOU SMOOCH A GHOST? A: HECK YEAH, B: HECK YEAH, C: HECK YEAH, D: HECK YEAH.”

Alphys glared at Mettaton as Nafi facepalmed and sighed, “A.”

“GREAT ANSWER! I LOVE IT! HERE’S A SIMPLE ONE. HOW MANY LETTERS IN THE NAME METTATONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN-?”

He seemed to glitch and get stuck in a loop of N, but she realized it was on purpose when Alphys formed the letter C. How did he know the answer? 

Stay on topic Nafi, get through this first then be paranoid about the one helping you.

“C.”

Mettaton snapped out of his fake glitch, saying “OF COURSE THAT WAS EASY FOR YOU! TIME TO BREAK OUT THE BIG GUNS. IN THE DATING SIMULATION GAME ‘MEW MEW KISSY CUTIE’ WHAT IS MEW MEW’S FAVORITE FOOD?”

He didn’t even have time to give out the answers as Alphys yelled at the top of his voice, “OH! OH! I KNOW THIS ONE!! IT'S SNAIL ICE CREAM!! IN THE FOURTH CHAPTER EVERYONE GOES TO THE BEACH!! AND SHE BUYS ICE CREAM FOR ALL OF HER FRIENDS!! BUT IT'S SNAIL FLAVOR AND SHE'S THE ONLY ONE WHO WANTS IT!! IT'S ONE OF MY FAVORITE PARTS OF THE GAME BECAUSE IT'S ACTUALLY A VERY POWERFUL message about friendship and...”

Alphys had just blown the charade, Mettaton knew he was helping.

“ALPHYS, ALPHYS, ALPHYS. YOU AREN’T HELPING OUR CONTESTANT ARE YOU?” the robot interrupted, “OHHHH YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME. I’LL ASK A QUESTION YOU’LL BE SURE TO KNOW THE ANSWER TO.”

Turning back to Nafi, Mettaton asked, “WHO DOES DR. ALPHYS HAVE A CRUSH ON? A: UNDYNE, B: ASGORE, C: THE HUMAN, D: I DON’T KNOW.”

What kind of question was this? Now Nafi knew Alphys had lost control, no one would willingly put themselves in this position. Might as well be sort of nice then as Alphys wasn’t saying anything.

“D.”

Mettaton shrugged, “CORRECT. ALPHYS HAS A CRUSH… ON THE UNKNOWABLE. SEE, ALPHYS BELIEVES THERE IS SOMEONE OUT THERE. SOMEONE WATCHING HIM. SOMEONE HE THINKS IS ‘CUTE’ AND ‘INTERESTING’. HELLO THEORETICAL PERSON. DR. ALPHYS LOVES YOU. TOO BAD YOU AREN’T REAL.”

Mettaton laughed as Alphys glared at him again and Nafi blinked in complete confusion. Alphys interrupted, “H-Hey, I’ve done research about this. There are alternate universes out there! S-someday, maybe, I could meet them…”

Mettaton looked over at him, deadpanning, “YOU SAID THE SAME THING ABOUT ‘MEW MEW KISSY CUTIE’. BUT I’LL GIVE YOU THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT. PERSON, IF YOU ARE OUT THERE… HOW ABOUT GIVING US A SIGN, RIGHT NOW?” 

A few seconds passed, but Alphys phone dinged. He pulled it out and looked at it, then raised it above his head, shouting, “Look! Someone messaged me!”

“SO, SOMEONE DID… THAT SETTLES IT DOESN’T IT,” Mettaton turned back to Nafi as the lasers shut off and her soul disappeared. , “WELL, WELL, WELL. WITH DR. ALPHYS HELPING YOU… THE SHOW HAS NO DRAMATIC TENSION! WE CAN’T GO ON LIKE THIS! BUT. BUT! THIS WAS JUST THE PILOT EPISODE! NEXT UP, MORE DRAMA! MORE ROMANCE! MORE BLOODSHED! UNTIL NEXT TIME, DARLINGS…”

He then pulled his arms and wheel into his main box body and rocketed up and away. She was afraid to look up, whoknew what Mettaton would do when he reached the ceiling. She wouldn’t put it past him to drop a piano on her head, but only if she looked up.

The two left in the room looked at each other in silence. Eventually, Alphys broke it, muttering “Well that was certainly something. Thank goodness my phone got low on battery when it did or that would have been worse.” 

Nafi felt like she needed to apologize. “Sorry for putting you in that situation?”

Alphys waved his arms in front of him, saying, “O-oh no! No n-need to apologize! If anything I-I should thank you. Here, let me give you my ph-phone number!”

He ran over as Nafi pulled out her phone, something that distracted the scientist from his rambling, “Th-then… m-maybe… if you need help, I could…” 

He suddenly grabbed Nafi’s phone. “Wh… Where did you get that phone?! It’s ANCIENT! It doesn’t even have texting. Do you mind if I upgrade it?” 

Nafi shrugged, “Sure, have fun. Just leave the numbers in there alone.”

“Of course!”

Alphys walked over to her table and started working on the phone while Nafi looked around. Apparently the hole Mattaton came through was only a few feet deep, meaning the large shakes were probably just for dramatic effect. How he got back there in the first place was the question.

Soon, Alphys was done. He came back and handed her the phone, saying, “It’s been upgraded. It has texting, item storage, it’s got a keychain… I even signed you up for the Underground’s number one social network! Now we’re officially friends! Ehehehe! Hehehe...heh...”

Nafi looked at the lizard as he stood there awkwardly. Was she supposed to say something?

Alphys muttered, “I need to go to the bathroom,” and walked through a door in the left wall. Nafi turned around and walked through the door opposite the one she entered. 

Seconds after she left the building, her phone dinged. She pulled it out and read, “Alphys updated status: just realized i didn’t watch undyne fight the human v. v”

Was this social media? Just spilling what you did to everyone? No thanks.

As she was fiddling with her phone to mute the ‘updates’, Papyrus called her and she answered.

“HUMAN! I SAW YOU ON THE TV!”

Undyne in the background called out, “Yeah! And you handled that with style!”

Nafi coughed and eyed her halved health, saying, “I wouldn’t call it style…”

“Either way it was Awesome!”

She pulled out some veggie bars and ate as Undyne and Papyrus alternated gushing about how cool it was to see her on TV with Mettaton. Eventually, when she was full and her health was slowly climbing she interrupted, “By the way, Alphys was nice and upgraded my phone. Do either of you know how to shut off the ‘updates’? I’d rather not be interrupted every few steps.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Without her phone dinging every few steps, she went through the very dangerous traps and puzzles of Hotland pretty fast. 

Although whoever considered these puzzles... Moving paths that tossed her every which way, steam cannons that propelled her over lava pits, and lasers, these weren’t puzzles, they were hazards. Added onto those were annoying block games that were required to open doors, constantly on the lookout for the royal guard, and the constant interruptions by other monsters wanting to fight over lava pits!

Nothing about this place was fun, and she hadn't even been walking for more than 20 minutes!

Finally, she reached a place that wasn’t scorching hot. It was dark and she couldn’t see, but she wasn’t sweating out in the heat. 

*Ring Ring*

Nafi picked up. “Hello?”

“H-hey,” Alphys replied, “It’s kinda dark in there, isn’t it? Don’t worry, I’ll h-hack into the light system and brighten it up!”

A few seconds later the lights turned on revealing a kitchen.

Nafi heard Alphys say, “Oh no,” through the phone as she watched Mettaton rise from the floor in front of her.

“OH YES!” the robot exclaimed, “WELCOME, BEA-U-TIES, TO THE- ACK!”

Nafi interrupted him by running up to him and jumping on him, using him as a springboard to get over and gain speed. She ran out the other end of the room saying, “Nope,” on repeat during the entire stunt.

“HEY!” Mettaton called after her, “GET BACK HERE! YOUR MY LOVELY ASSISTANT!”

“NO,” she screamed back.

Nafi kept running ducking into the first room she found and, finding it to be an elevator, pressed a random button. After a tense few minutes where nothing happened other than the elevator moving, her phone rang.

It was Papyrus.

She thought back to the long period of time Papyrus and Undyne rambled on about her and Mettaton.

She thought about what they could say now that she pretty much embarrassed him in front of them.

She declined the call.


	8. CHAPTER 7: Hotland Blues

**CHAPTER 7: Hotland Blues**

Sans was preparing some hot dogs for himself when he heard the elevator open. He looked over, preparing to try and sell some of his hot dogs, only to stop as Nafi stepped out. 

Sans liked to think he was good at reading people, although he didn’t remember where he picked up the skill. The human walking over? Her expression was almost unreadable. 

Reaching the sentry station Sans used as a hot dog stand, Nafi sat down beside it.

“hey, what’s up?” Sans asked.

Nafi glanced over and up, doing a double-take when she realized there was snow on his roof. “Snow on your roof,” she stated questionably.

He shrugged, “too lazy to clean it off. you wanna buy a hot dog?”

She blinked at him a few times, having issues rationalizing what she heard with what she thought his reaction was going to be. She had expected anger or petty revenge, not… Whatever Sans is doing. 

That and he just brushed off the fact there is snow on his roof while in a cavern with lava at the bottom.

She was not in the correct emotional state to deal with the enigma that is Sans the Skeleton who owns clothes but not a bow. Ignoring everything in her head, she asked, “Do you have vegetarian hot dogs?”

“Tibia-onest, all of them are,” Sans replied, “made of water sausage, which is a plant.”

Nafi tried to remember if she had picked up any money over the course of her stay down here, a thought process that was moot when he handed her one. He jiggled it and said, “here, you can have one on me. with the hang-Dog face you're making, ya look like you need it.”

She took it and, after giving it a look over, nibbled at it. With no taste of poison, she took bigger bites.

Sans watched her, wondering what happened when he received a text from his brother.

Pulling out his phone, he read, “HAVE YOU SEEN METTATON’S NEW EPISODE YET?”

“no” he texted back.

Papyrus sent him a link to a video. The video was only one minute long and titled “Mettaton the robotic catapult”.

It started with Mettaton rising out of the floor from behind a kitchen counter, Nafi standing stiffly off to the side, phone in hand.

“OH YES!” the recorded robot exclaimed, voice tinny and quiet coming through the speaker, “WELCOME, BEA-U-TIES, TO THE- ACK!”

Interrupting him, Nafi exploded into action, using him as a springboard to get over and away. The muffled “Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope,” overshadowed by an obviously edited in “BOING” noise.

Sans chuckled.

Her jump was then repeated at a slower speed, the video zooming in on Mettaton’s front as he was tipped over by Nafi’s foot, the surprised exclamation even funnier in slow-mo.

He texted his brother, “funny”

A few seconds went by, Papyrus was typing something long.

Finally, the text came in. “I KNOW! EVEN UNDYNE CACKLED! BUT WHEN I TRIED TO CALL HER TO CONGRATULATE HER, SHE DIDN’T PICK UP. I THINK I MAY HAVE ACCIDENTALLY INSULTED THE HUMAN SOMEHOW. YOU’RE IN THE AREA AROUND THIS POINT SO, IF YOU SEE HER, COULD YOU PLEASE APOLOGIZE FOR ME?”

“i’ll talk with her,” he sent back.

He looked down at Nafi.

She wasn’t there. 

Looking around quickly, he was just able to see her cape flapping behind her as she turned a corner farther down.

He tried to figure out why she left, and remembered what she said last time they met.

_ “Become famous for your usefulness and less people will want to kill you and more will protect you from the undead or others.” _

Sighing, Sans dropped his head into his hands. 

She couldn’t think that they were angry at her for escaping Mettaton, could she?

Who was he kidding, of course she was. He’d actually have to work to fix this misunderstanding. 

Or he could get Papyrus to do it.

He looked back at his phone and started texting.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nafi ignored her phone as it kept ringing every few steps. She wanted out of this place and she wanted out now before an angry mob caught up with her. 

Sure, she avoided getting yelled at for now, but eventually she was going to have to pick up the phone to help solve a puzzle.

Either way, two puzzles in and she was doing well. 

Until she wasn’t.

“Hey, you! Stop!”

Nafi’s hand drifted down to her sword as she turned around to face two royal guards in full armor. One of them had bunny ears, but the other was too heavenly armored to see any defining features.

Health: 150, Defense: 20, Attack: 30, really hard to tell them apart when they have the same stats.

“How may I help you?” she asked.

“We’ve, like, received an anonymous tip about a human in a cape,” the bunny guard said, “They told us they were wandering around Hotland right now…”

She gripped the sword.

The guard continued, “I know, sounds scary, huh? Well, just stay chill. We’ll bring you someplace safe, okay?”

Looking upon these two oblivious idiots, Nafi mentally started counting down to when they would realize she is the human in a cape. They were walking away and she had reached negative 3 before the heavily armored guard stopped the bunny guard.

“... Huh? What is it, bro?” 

An armored finger was pointed at Nafi, more specifically, her cape.

“Bro…” bunny ears drooped, “Are you thinkin’... what I’m thinkin’? Bummer. This is, like… mega embarrassing.”

All three of them pulled out their swords almost in sync and the bunny continued, “We, like, actually have to totally kill you and stuff.”

Nafi’s Soul appeared and she got to work thinking of a way out of this. A task made harder by the fact that the place they had cornered her was an earthen bridge above lava.

Bunny Ears’ sword was blocked as it swung down to meet Nafi’s, only for Nafi to dodge to the side to avoid an attack by the other guard. It was a cycle that repeated as she planned, a deadly dance that wasn’t any harder than any other fight, even with two of them.

Yet she dodged late, a clever play by Bunny Ears making her have to stay in one spot longer, her quick reflexes saving her from doom. Her sharp eye catching sight of helpful information.

The heavily armored guard’s armor was crusty with dirt and moist scales could be barely seen under the helmet. A fish like Undyne.

This fish she didn’t mind cooking. 

She dropped into a split as swords swung above her and she sprung up with the bottom of her cape in her off hand. With a quick wipe, large chunks of the dirt were knocked off the armor. Another few dodges and another few wipes and the fish was suffering in the heat.

“...Can’t … Take it… Armor… To... Hot.”

Suffering enough to take off the armor.

Bunny Ears’ attacks started to miss her, the guard obviously distracted.

Taking advantage of that distraction, Nafi forced the guard off balance remarking, “If you're going to be distracted, then there’s no use fighting. Whatever it is, say it now.”

One more round of easy to dodge attacks and Nafi laughingly stated, “You’re being idiots.”

Before she could properly threaten them though, Bunny Ears threw down his sword and turned to the other guard with a cry of, “Dude, I can’t take this any more. Not like this! Like, 02! I like… I like, Like you, bro!”

Bunny Ears took 02’s, which is a horrible name if you ask Nafi, hands and started a list of love, “The way you fight… The way you talk… I love doing team attacks with you. I love standing here with you, holding your hands…”

“...01…”

Nafi walked away as the horribly named guards confessed their love for each other. No reason to stick around while they’re distracted. Not that she really needed to as she spotted them walking away from her happily.

After playing matchmaker for some unknown reason, she wanted something normal.

The dark room in front of her was normal, for Mettaton’s traps anyway.

She stared into the dark opening, thinking of how to go about getting through this one. The flaw she exploited last time, an open exit, would most likely be fixed.

Except, when did a closed door ever stop her?

With her console, he would never know she was here in the first place while she could see everything.

/effect give Nafriskenta invisibility 120

/effect give Nafriskenta night_vision 120

Nafi held her hand in front of her face and could see right through it into the no longer dark room.

Two minutes to get through whatever was here, let's go.

As she moved through the room, she observed her surroundings. It was a vague maze like area with random stuff placed everywhere and high above, Mettaton adjusted the suit and tie he was wearing.

Nafi’s already low opinion of him was brought lower as she walked right out the other side no issues. As the effects wore off she realized that if Alphys had been watching her, then she would have seen that.

Well, she probably would have seen everything so far, still not a good thought.

At least it worked, she’d rather not have more people gunning for her if she just walked out on whatever that was supposed to be.

Ducking into an elevator, she took a moment to relax before hitting the button for the next floor.

Her phone rang, again.

She buried it deeper in her cape pockets.

The elevator opened and she stepped out into an area that, compared to the sweltering heat of the rest of Hotland, felt like Snowdin. The path she was on went past a small table, Nafi stopping there just long enough to see a spider-like monster behind the table, which was full of baked goods.

“Welcome to our parlor dearie~” the spider monster said, “Interested in one of our spider pastries? All proceeds go to real spiders~”

Nafi looked at the prices for the treats and stared at the gigantic numbers. That much for spiders?

“Uh, no thanks. I’m good.”

Nafi hurried away onto the next puzzle as her phone rang again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After another double block puzzle, she came up to a large purple building. Sniffing the air, Nafi was reminded of the one time she explored an abandoned mineshaft. It may have been many years ago, but she never forgot the smell of spiderwebs.

_ “When you’re older, Nafriskenta, we’ll take you to a mineshaft. You’ll love it down there.” _

_ “Note to self, never go back into a mineshaft. It doesn't matter what Mother said, the resources aren’t worth the spiders.” _

She shook off the bad memories, pulled out her sword and headed inside.

Suddenly a voice sounded from around her, echoing above the sound of spiders moving around, “Ahuhuhuhu… Did you hear what they just said?”

Even in the darkened room, Nafi could see her path ahead. She hurried forward, trying to ignore the soft voices coming from all around.

“They said a human wearing a cape will come through.”

She stepped into a web and almost fell forward onto her face.

“I heard that they hate spiders.”

She stepped into more webs, her sword wrapped tightly in them.

“I heard that they love to stomp on them.”

She stepped into even more webs and her rising panic didn’t stop her from wondering how you were supposed to stomp on a spider.

“I heard they like to tear their legs off.”

She stepped into so many webs that she was barely moving now, panic preventing her from even questioning how someone would even go about tearing spiders’ legs off.

“I heard…”

She couldn’t move as the spider person from earlier stepped next to her.

“... that they are awfully stingy with their money. Ahuhuhuhu.”

Health: 1250, Defense: 18, Attack: 38, where’s the spider stats?!

Nafi whipped her head around, searching for the spider’s glowing red eyes in the darkness. Where were they?!

“You think your tastes are too refined for our pastries, don’t you dearie?”

Nafi, desperate to see how many spiders she was dealing with, interrupted the spider person, “Where are your spiders then?”

The soft sound of scuttling stopped abruptly, terrifying Nafi even more. The spider person deadpanned, “Are you blind?”

Nafi looked back, panicked and confused in equal measures, “No? I just don’t see any spiders?”

The spider person was now also confused, “You- How do you not see any spiders? They’re all around you.”

Nafi looked around again, ignoring the tiny monsters sitting in the webs, “Then where are the glowing red eyes?”

“Glowing eyes? Why would we need glowing eyes? We can see perfectly fine in the dark.”

“Well obviously you can’t because there are no spiders here.”

“Of course, there is! Right here! Practically on top of you!”

“Even without the glowing eyes, I think I would be able to spot two meter long spiders on me.”

“Two yards? I think you mean two inches.”

“Where are you getting that? Have you ever seen a spider before or does inch mean something different?”

“I am a spider! We are surrounded by spiders! What are you talking about?!”

“Spiders of course! They’re gigantic, have glowing eyes, and want to eat my face off!”

“Your face doesn’t even look tasty?”

“Tell that to a spider!”

The spider person buried her face in her many hands and screamed in frustration. “Just, just go. I can no longer deal with you.”

The webs let Nafi go and she ran out the door, dodging the tiny spider-look-a-like monsters on her way out.

She sprinted so fast Mettaton never even had a chance to start his cameras for his next show starring her before she was past him and his stage.

Once out onto the normal rocky pathways of Hotland, she took the next left up some stairs. At the top was a building obviously created in honor of the robot if the statue of him she could see through the doors was any indication. Standing next to the doors was Sans leaning against the wall and looking right at her.

“hey kid, what’s the rush?” 

Nafi slowed to a stop in front of the doors and glanced at him. She said nothing.

Sans sighed, “you know everyone is worried about you.”

“Worried about me or going for my head?” she scoffed.

“is this about metta being a celebrity? he has maybe 20 people watching him on a good day. besides, he needs the pin in his Metta-Tons of ego sometimes.”

Nafi gave him a more thorough look, saying, “That was bad, you need to lay off the Metta-Puns.”

Sans laughed hard at that, so hard it attracted the attention of an ally-cat and an ally-croc who peeked out from behind the building to see. Once he had recovered, he held out his hand, “how about grabbing some dinner with us first, then you can keep going.”

“Us?” Nafi asked.

“me, pap, tori, undyne, and alphys”

Sans was calling to make things right.

Nafi grabbed his hand and answered the call.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nafi dutifully ignored the fact that Sans teleported her through a wall, and took in the sight of her friends clustered around a table.

She observed each one as they interacted.

Toriel seemed to be silently laughing at something, or maybe it was a slight concern. She had the same hand over the mouth gesture for both emotions.

Papyrus was angry, but it was the anger he had at Sans’ puns, so not actually angry.

Undyne and Alphys were looking away from each other, Alphys even going the extra mile and hiding his face in his hands. Not that it hid his blush that matched with Undyne’s. 

She half wondered what the conversation was about.

“so, I found her,” Sans said from beside her. 

Everyone looked over and Nafi, even with Sans’ reassurances, expected to see anger or resentment.

There was no anger, in fact the most common emotion was joy. Toriel and Papyrus even jumped up and ran over for a hug with a cry of “Nafi!” and “HUMAN!” respectively.

Nafi braced herself as the two monsters slammed into her. Then Toriel gasped and Nafi followed her eyes to the bandages on her arm. Oh yeah, she hadn’t taken them off yet from her fight with Undyne. 

“You're hurt!” Toriel cried as she healed the already mostly healed wound.

20/20

Undyne spoke up in the background, “Uh, that’s my fault.”

Nafi replied as she removed the bandages, “I saved you from a burning building you caused with your own cooking, I’d say we’re even.”

Alphys asked “Is that why your home is on fire?” as Toriel carefully dragged Nafi over to the table, Sans and Papyrus following close behind.

Nafi sat down with the rest of them and pulled out some veggie bars. Between bites, she asked, “So what were you talking about?”

Papyrus answered first, “TORIEL IS JUST AS FULL OF PUNS AS MY BROTHER! AND ALPHYS THOUGHT THIS WAS A DATE WITH UNDYNE.”

Nafi blinked as Alphys and Undyne blushed again, swallowed what was in her mouth and said, “Have fun then.”

Everyone blinked at her in confusion. Papyrus shook off his confusion first and got straight to the point, “HUMAN, DID I OFFEND YOU?”

Nafi asked, “No? Why would you think that?” 

“WHY DID YOU NEVER PICK UP?” Papyrus asked back.

“Because I thought you would be offended!”

Alphys spoke up, “About what?”

“I basically assaulted a celebrity in my attempt to run away and have been avoiding him this entire time. I expected the general offended yells and attacks when someone does that...” she shrugged with nothing else to say.

Alphys blinked. “H-humans actually react like that?”

The other monsters at the table voiced similar disbelief.

Nafi scoffed, “Have as long as I’ve been alive, although I was only born in 4020.”

“F-f-f-4020! The current year is 2040,” Alphys exclaimed, “W-what the heck happened!”

There was stunned silence around the table before Sans finally found his voice, “how long ago was the last earthquake?”

Alphys looked at Sans before pulling out a notebook, flipping through frantically as Nafi answered, “2020 years ago, plus a few days. The day I was born was actually the 2000th anniversary. What exactly does this have to do with me going back in time?!”

Alphys answered before Sans did, “Because you didn’t go backwards, we went forwards.”

The silence came back for one more beat before Toriel shakily asked, “Explanation please?”

Alphys rambled out an answer, “The earthquake was 20 years ago our time and 2020 years her time and when the earthquake happened the Core went into flux and produced much more power than necessary and I could never find out what it did because we never got more energy but multiple other machines went absolutely crazy including a few that the previous royal scientist made that I have no idea what they do but if we all got put into time stop then that makes so much more sense because nothing has been falling down into the trash pit since the earthquake and OH MY GOSH I need to get back to my lab and write this down!”

He dashed from the table, everyone else calling out for him to stop. Nafi stuffed the rest of her food into her mouth and took off after him.

She entered the main room of the building that she had seen through the doors. She didn’t stop to look around as she saw him entering an elevator off in the corner. Sprinting, she reached it just as the doors closed behind him.

That didn’t stop her as she pried open the doors and jumped in after him. She realized the consequences of her rash decision as she started to catch up with the elevator.

Thinking quickly, she pushed off the wall, wrapped the ends of her cape around her hands, and grabbed the cable holding the elevator bringing a controlled stop to her fall.

16/20

Although she didn’t escape unscathed. 

As she and the elevator lowered she had a moment to think and realized that she didn’t remember an elevator anywhere near Alphys’ lab, much less one that led straight to the top.

The elevator stopped and Nafi lowered herself down to the roof hatch and opened it to get inside. Dropping down, she hit the button for the doors to open and stepped out into a dark and ominous medical room.

Alphys was nowhere in sight

“Son of a Creeper’s spore sack.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Once upon a time, both long ago and not, there was a scientist and his two assistants.

Each of them made a mistake, the scientist and one of the assistants made their mistake with the same machine.

The last done on his own.

Secrets never stay forgotten for long.


	9. CHAPTER 8: True Lab, Hidden Secret

**CHAPTER 8: True Lab, Hidden Secret**

“Entry Number 1. This is it… Time to do what the King has asked me to do. I will create the power to save us all. I will unleash the power of the Soul.”

“Entry Number 2. The barrier is locked by Soul power. Unfortunately, this power cannot be created artificially. Soul power can only be derived from what was once living. So, to create more, we will have to use what we already have… The Souls of monsters”

“Entry Number 3. But extracting the Soul from a living monster would require incredible power… Besides being impractical, doing so would instantly destroy the Soul’s host. And, unlike the persistent Souls of humans… The Souls of most monsters disappear immediately upon death. If only I could make a monster’s Soul last.”

“Entry Number 5. I’ve done it. Using the blueprints, I’ve extracted it from the human Souls. I believe this is what gives their Souls the strength to persist after death. The will to keep living… The resolve to change fate. Let’s call this power… ‘Determination.’”

Alphys’ voice echoed from screens in the wall as Nafi walked past. She knew they were desperate, but experimenting on themselves? Not that she could really say anything and not be a hypocrite given what humans did to themselves when the undead came.

Although that might be why Alphys was so jittery if this was what he was hiding.

Wondering about morals aside, she had a mission. Alphys was still somewhere in here and he had answers to her questions, both the ones she came down here for and the new ones. 

Leaving the hallway of screens, Nafi entered a bigger room with a large door across from her. It was labeled ‘Power Room’ so unless the power was out Alphys was probably not in there. There was an odd machine with food in it and two other paths, one to the left and one to the right. Nafi glanced at the machine and went left.

“Entry Number 6. Asgore asked everyone outside the city for monsters who had ‘Fallen Down’. Their bodies came in today. They’re still comatose… and soon, they’ll all turn into dust. But what happens if I inject ‘determination’ into them? If their Souls persist after they perish, then… Freedom might be closer than we all thought.”

Yet you’re still down here, something must have gone wrong.

Nafi walked into the next room. Operating tables were lined up against the wall with an odd fluid she refused to touch staining their surface. She spotted sinks on the other side of the room and, feeling dirty just looking at the tables, walked over to wash her hands. 

Another screen played its message on the way.

“Entry Number 9. Things aren’t going well. None of the bodies have turned into dust, so i can’t get the Souls. I told the families that I would give them the dust back for funerals. People are starting to ask me what’s happening. What do I do?”

Nafi shivered as the end Alphys’ recorded message echoed through the room. Did she pity him? Did she fear him? For the time being, she wanted to wash her hands and try the other hall.

She went to the sink farthest away from the stuff-covered tables and turned it on.

Nothing came out of the faucet at first, but eventually something did.

It was not water.

She backed up against the opposite wall as the white goo flowed out of the faucet and into the bowl, wriggling and gurgling as it did. Soon it was overflowing the sink, pulling itself into three odd spherical shapes. Nafi stood aghast at the pulsing, pained faces that made up the gooey creatures. Then her Soul was revealed, and she realized they weren’t just going to stand there.

Yet...her HUD gave her nothing. What-?

She gripped her ears as the things let out a horrible blast of static, distracting her from the odd white dots that surrounded her. Finally noticing when they exploded into odd wiggling faces, she sidestepped around each of them until they stopped. 

Her phone made noise and she grabbed it, hoping it was someone she knew.

There were voices, but she didn’t recognize them. “Come Join The Fun,” they said

The dots started again, and as she dodged she cried, “I would rather not!”

They stopped and her Soul disappeared.

She stood there as the creatures left sliding into another room next to the sinks, leaving behind a red key. 

Nafi looked into the room, mumbling to herself, “At least they’re polite creatures?” 

A small red slot was the only thing in the room besides the creatures, so she headed back the way she came. 

At the end of the right path was a door with red lights that were unlit.

Then she went back and washed her hands and the key. She slid by the creatures to get to the red slot, none of them doing anything to stop her. The key slid in and the slot lit up a deep red, the sound of the door opening able to be heard. 

On the way back out of the room, one of the creatures handed her a piece of paper. It was covered in the same symbols as Sans’ stuff, but there was no translation.

She handed it back.

The voices started coming from her phone again.

“Entry Number 17. Dark darker yet darker. The darkness keeps growing. The shadows cutting deeper. Photon readings negative. This next experiment seems very very interesting. What do you two think?”

In her opinion, those things were creepier than Endermen. At least they were polite.

She nodded thanks and fled back towards the now open door.

Through the door was another path of screens

“Entry Number 12. Nothing is happening. I don’t know what to do. I’ll just keep injecting everything with ‘determination’. I want this to work.”

“Entry Number 13. One of the bodies opened its eyes.”

The next room was full of beds, one of them unmade. There were two exits, both in the corner farthest away from her. She went around the beds, almost tripping on an empty dog bowl, and took the door on the left. It led immediately to the middle of another hallway where she turned left again, following more screens.

“Entry Number 14. Everyone that had fallen down… has woken up. They’re all walking around and talking like nothing is wrong. I thought they were goners…?”

“Entry Number 15. Seems like this research was a dead end… But at least we got a happy ending out of it…? I sent the Souls and the vessel back to Asgore. And I called all the families and told them everyone’s alive. I’ll send everyone back tomorrow.”

“E-entry Number 16. No no no no NO NO NO NO NO!”

As Alphys’ recorded screams of denial echoed with a disturbing finality to them, Nafi stared at a giant head like machine taking up most of the new room and another white goo creature next to it that was staring right back.

Nafi called out, “Hello?”

It opened the tooth filled mouth that sat on top of the sinuous body. “Welcome to my special hell,” echoed in a dozen different voices as Nafi’s Soul was revealed.

It tried to bite down on her and Nafi threw herself to the right, heading to a room she spotted. 

She pulled out her sword, blocking as the teeth came down again. The strength of the strike forced her to actually flex to keep it back.

It backed up and flexed back.

She backed away into the room as it left the way she came.

Time to explore before it comes back, starting with the room she’s in now.

The room itself was full of bookcases, none of them holding books, rather videos. The really odd thing about them were their titles. ‘Mew Mew Kissy Cutie’? ‘Sailor Moon’? ‘Ouran Highschool Host Club’? 

In the middle of the shelves was a TV, a video of black paused on it. Nafi pressed play.

A voice that wasn’t Alphys came out of it, saying, “I... I don’t like this idea, Chara.”

A second voice, quieter than the first said, “You're crying.”

“Wh... what? N-no I’m not…”

“I know the solution to this. Repeat after me. ‘Big kids don’t cry.’”

“...Big kids don’t cry.”

“Better?”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

“Did you doubt me?”

“No! I’d never doubt you, Chara… Never!”

“Then don’t doubt the-”

Nafi turned off the TV. She pointedly tried to forget the video and not question why Chara’s voice sounded so familiar, like someone she had heard all day. She had never heard him before, why did she feel like this? No, not wondering. Move on, let it stay a mystery.

On the other side of the previous room was the label for the head machine. ‘DT Extraction Machine’.

Nafi left the room quickly, only to go back the way she came when the room she entered was so full of fog it was impossible to see. 

On the way back past the screaming screen, she found a room she missed with something in a shower that was definitely not Alphys. 

She continued past and down the other side of the hallway.

It was a room of fans and fog.

In the fog another screen echoed, “Entry Number 11. Now that Mettaton’s made it big, he never talks to me anymore… Except to ask when I’m going to finish his body. But I’m afraid if I finish his body, he won’t need me anymore… Then we’ll never be friends ever again… Not to mention, every time I try to work on it, I just get really sweaty…”

On the other side of the room was a switch that, when Nafi flipped it, turned on the fans revealing a giant dog-like goo creature.

Nafi petted it and it let her go.

With the fans on, she wondered if the other room of fog was cleared. A little bit of backtracking revealed that, yes, it was.

This room was filled with fridges and more screens.

“Entry Number 19. The families keep calling to ask when everyone is coming home. What am I supposed to say? I don’t even answer the phone anymore.”

“Entry Number 20. Asgore left me five messages today. Four about everyone being angry, one about this cute teacup he found that looks like me. Thanks, Asgore.”

“Entry Number 21. I spend all my time at the garbage dump now. It’s my element.”

Nafi passed by the last fridge and moved to the next room

“Sno...wy…”

She spun around to see Snowdrake standing where the fridge was. Except it wasn’t Snowdrake, it was melting all over the floor. 

Nafi thought quickly and hesitantly told a joke, “I got hit in the face with a snowball recently, it left me out cold.”

It laughed, “I ...remember…”

She told another one, “What did the snowman say to the bird? I have Snow idea.”

It laughed some more, “Thank… you…” and scooted away, handing her a blue key on the way by.

The room she was heading to was empty except for a green slot, so she made note of it and headed back.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Back in the bedroom, she entered the other door.

It was full of yellow, six petalled flowers, mirrors, and, oh look, more screens.

“Entry Number 7. We’ll need a vessel to wield the monster Souls when the time comes. After all, a monster cannot absorb the Souls of other monsters. Just as a human cannot absorb a human Soul… So then… What about something that’s neither human nor monster?”

“Entry Number 10. Experiments on the vessel are a failure. It doesn’t seem to be any different than the control cases. Whatever. They’re a hassle to work with anyway. The seeds just stick to you, and won’t let go…”

On the way to the door at the other end of the room, she was stopped by a large bird-like creature.

Given the others were so polite, Nafi asked, “Please don't hurt me?” 

Surprisingly, it does nothing more than say a few lines and walk away. 

Finally, she found Alphys.

“Where is it? I thought I had that blue key on me somewhere?”

Nafi cleared her throat.

Alphys spun around.

“O-oh…” he said, staring at Nafi in shock, “I... I didn’t expect you down here…”

“I have a lot of questions,” Nafi started as Alphys seemed to shrivel up on himself, “The least of which is about the goo creatures.”

Alphys looked up at that, asking, “You-ou don’t h-hate me for the A-amalgamates?”

The Amalgamates, apparently the real name of the goo creatures, scooted into the room at the mention of them.

“I’ll let you know when I figure it out, you said you needed the blue key?” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nafi, Alphys and the Amalgamates were walking past the elevator when it opened, depositing the rest of the people who had been at the table.

It was impossible to not notice the gooey monster mixes, and reactions were mixed as everyone filed out.

Sans and Undyne stood there in silence, and while Sans didn’t give anything away, Undyne’s face was a mask of horror.

Toriel just gasped in sorrow, “Oh my…”

Papyrus locked eyes with the Snowdrake look-a-like and quietly, for him anyway, asked, “ICEDRAKE?”

Alphys wilted yet again. Staring at the floor, he quietly admitted, “I guess I have some explaining to do.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Once Alphys had gathered the required papers, everyone gathered in the room full of beds. Mostly because there weren't enough chairs for the five monsters, one human, and four Amalgamates. 

Nafi already knew most of the story having heard it from the screens, but hearing it in Alphys own voice gave it a visceral edge. The ending was something new though.

“... a-and it’s been over t-twenty years. No one’s s-s-sent me any letters in so long, but t-that makes it worse. I-I’ve kept them here s-so long, th-their... families... f-forgot...

Alphys buried his face in his hands and sobbed, sinking further into the bed he sat on.

The room was silent as everyone thought about what they just heard and what they were hearing. The silence stretched for minutes, long past when Alphys finished crying.

Finally, Papyrus broke the silence first, “YOU TRULY REGRET WHAT YOU DID?”

Alphys nodded, mumbling an affirmative. 

“THEN YOU NEED TO TRY AND FIX IT,” he continued.

“But HOW?” Alphys almost screamed as he unfolded, startling everyone, “I’ve already ruined my chance by keeping them down here this long with nothing to show for trying to fix this! Nothing I do works, and no one is going to forgive me, I can’t even forgive myself! I-I’m afraid t-to…”

He sunk back down, hiding back in his hands, “I’m afraid I’ll...do something… cowardly.”

Nafi clenched her jaw as she realized just what Alphys was referring to. Undyne must have realized it too as she ran over to give some sort of comfort, Papyrus right behind her.

Ignoring what was going on, Nafi looked over at where Snowdrake’s mother was trying, and failing, to pet the large dog. Yes, Alphys made a mistake in not saying anything. He regrets that mistake every day, and apparently is so torn up that he would do something drastic just to escape the glares.

She looked back over to the cuddle pile that had grown much larger and cleared her throat to get everyone’s attention.

“What are you planning to do now?” She asked the lizard at the bottom.

Alphys extracted himself from the pile, looking down, in thought or shame she didn’t know “I need to tell everyone about what I’ve done,” he said, voice shaky but not stuttering, “It’s the right thing to do, but it’s going to be hard… Being honest.... Believing in myself…”

Nafi knelt to get on eye level with the lizard. 

“Look at me,” she said and waited for him to look up, “You can do this. You are smart, you have done great things. If you need help, we’ll be right behind you.”

A wet hand plopped itself on her shoulder and she added, “Them too apparently.”

Alphys smiled shyly and looked around, “Thanks guys.”

Nafi stood up as the others chimed in with a, “Your welcome.” 

She looked around for a moment before asking, “Now that we have dealt with that, can we get to the reason we came down here in the first place?”

Alphys blinked in confusion before remembering what she was talking about, saying, “Oh! Oh yeah, I was getting papers to explain.”

He grabbed the folder from where he had laid it, spreading the pages inside on the bed.

There were various blueprints, readings, one page of the odd code, and lots of theories.

Alphys started his long explanation, “So, first, the previous royal scientist made a bunch of stuff, not all of it I could figure out what it did. When the earthquake happened, the first thing I did was make sure the Core wasn’t going to explode. It wasn’t but for some reason the power it was producing was much larger than it should have. Then I noticed a bunch of other gadgets were going bonkers,” he pointed at some papers that had lines going every which way, “And after a few seconds they stopped, most of them even stopped working entirely. Now, I don’t know what they did, but whatever they were tracking suddenly went up A LOT. So, obviously, a lot of it, whatever it was, happened all at once. My previous theory was that a lot happened at once, an earthquake just happened! My current theory, now that I have more information, is that the excess energy from the Core got funneled into the Barrier and that caused the Barrier to hold us not only down here, but in time as well. Then the energy was used up and we were released. That’s just a theory, but it’s the best theory I’ve got.”

There was silence as the large amount of information processed.

Nafi spoke first, “Well, that explains things.”

Everyone looked at each other, then Alphys looked at Nafi, “I would love to test this, but Mettaton isn’t going to let anyone get to the capitol until he has his fight with you. Given that’s where the Barrier is...”

Nafi nods, “If it’s a fight he wants, a fight he will get.” she smirked, “Let’s go.”


	10. CHAPTER 9: The Core Of The Problem

**CHAPTER 9: The Core Of The Problem**

“So what exactly is the Core,” Nafi asked.

“Geothermal energy converted into magical energy,” Alphys replied, “The reason it’s so big is the actual parts of the machine needed to be away from the lava to not overheat, w-which is actually still a problem because it itself generates heat. There’s a small canal that runs from Snowdin into the Core that large blocks of ice float down to help cool it.”

Nafi furrowed her brow as she thought back to her time in Snowdin as she walked the blue, metallic halls of the ludicrously gigantic machine they were talking about. Now that she thought about it, she did sort of remember ice being sent down a river although it never occurred to her to ask why they did it.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Alphys instructing her to, “Go left at the next fork.”

As she followed the directions, Nafi said, “I vaguely remember that actually. How do you have infinite ice then?”

“Same way Waterfall always rains,” Undyne interrupted, “Magic!”

“actually, none of the steam leaves the cave system so it just Falls back down eventually,” Sans corrected.

Papyrus groaned in the background.

Nafi shifted the phone her friends were talking through to her other ear as she slid across a narrow bridge, saying, “Back on my original train of thought because I got the machinery and steam, built some machines myself using steam power. What I don’t get is why I have to walk through the entire thing to get to Mettaton. You guys don’t just do this trek every time you go up to the capital do you?”

Because that was what she was doing. After she had left Alphys’ true lab, back up the elevator to where she started, her path led her though the Core. The Core itself was a maze of twists and turns and she soon had to call up Alphys to get her through. He was still back at his lab with the other monsters who were now giving commentary as they followed her using the cameras.

“Mettaton disabled the elevator to go around, a-and no we usually don't. It’s also called New Home, not just the capitol by the way,” Alphys said.

She nodded and the conversation turned to other matters. Eventually she asked a question that had been on her mind, “Why did the humans seal you down here? You seem nice enough.”

“Didn’t you read the tablets in Waterfall,” Undyne asked back, Toriel murmuring something too low to hear in the background.

Nafi thought for a second, “The ones labeled, ‘The War Of Humans And Monsters’? Not really, I thought it was going to be a list of the fallen or a list of battles, something like a history book.”

“You would think that,” Toriel sighed, “No, they are not a list, for there was only one battle and the fallen too numerous to name. They are our theories as to why the humans attacked. We believe the humans were afraid of us, for we could absorb their Souls and transform into terrifyingly powerful beings. They could not do the same...”

“Because monster Souls disappear on death and humans can’t absorb humans,” Nafi finished, remembering Alphys’ Entries in the lab. 

Her mind dredged up an image of a human with the magic of a monster, followed by a monster with the cold, calculating, ruthless emotions of a human, and the worst one, a human able to wield the power monsters said the human Soul possessed. Those images made her grimace, and she said, “I can see that being an issue. Do… things that come back from the dead have Souls? Or plants?” 

“They shouldn’t? Why do you ask?” Alphys asked, confused. Which prompted Toriel saying, “The surface is plagued by beings known as the Undead, although from what I have learned only half of them truly came back from the dead.”

Nafi took over the explanation, listing them out, “Zombies, Skeletons, Creepers which are walking, exploding plants, giant man-eating spiders, and the Endermen that no one has any clue about.”

Alphys screeched in a panic, “How are they not down here!”

“I’m pretty sure it has something to do with the Barrier, given I fell down the hole with an Enderman and it vaporized half way down.”

Which brought up a point, if the Barrier came down what was stopping the Undead from killing the monsters? To come up with an answer to this issue she needed more information. “How does magic work?”

Of the five monsters on the other side of the phone, none of them had the same answer. The chaos of the conversation, although calling it that was something of a misnomer, was a welcome distraction from her paranoia showing her images of humans absorbing Undead, previously human, Souls no matter how unlikely it was.

She caught the gist of her answer however, magic was a manifestation of the Soul willed into existence and into a certain shape with a certain purpose. How it was created differed from Soul to Soul, the color of the Soul having a large impact.

That brought up another question however, “What does the color of the Soul do then?”

“Turn right at the end of the hall,” Alphys instructed before answering, “Each color represents a personality trait basically, and the personality influences the types of magic able to be casted. Monster Souls, what we can see of them using special spells and equipment to check on their health, are mostly white with tints to one of the colors as everything blends. That means that we can cast all types of magic, with an affinity to one type or another. In human Souls, like yours, the colors don’t blend as well, meaning most types of magic are unusable. Occasionally you can get a human who can use magic, but that isn’t common.”

Nafi remembered her own red-green blended Soul and, with her thoughts turning to her HUD and console as she turned the corner, asked, “What colors represent what trait?”

Alphys started, “Yellow is Justice and those spells are normally ranged attacks.”

Undyne butted in, “Purple is Perseverance, holding to one path or paths! Tracking spells too.”

Papyrus came in over Undyne, “CYAN IS PATIENCE, MOSTLY CUTTING SPELLS. BLUE IS INTEGRITY, THOSE SPELLS ARE FOR PULLING.”

Toriel came in next, sushing Papyrus, “Green is Kindness and for healing or holding.”

Sans spoke up, “orange is bravery and movement.”

Alphys finally got control of the conversation back and finished with, “A-and! And red is most likely Determination. Although no spells have been found for it yet, it’s theorized to be something like manipulation of surroundings. I-I found that out after… t-the Amalgamates...” he was silent for a second before continuing, “O-o-obviously those a-aren’t all the colors, but they are the m-main seven.”

Nafi hummed as she thought about this new information. Determination and Kindness? Not what she expected, but she could see how it fit. She wondered aloud, “I thought red would be Spite, but I guess it’s just angry Determination. Although it could be Perseverance… Or both.”

“As f-fascinating as this is,” Alphys interrupted, “You’re getting close to the end and you need a plan to deal with Mettaton.”

She pressed her lips together and ruefully said, “It’s not as easy as stabbing him in a weak point is it?”

“Only slightly more complicated. The box you have been seeing isn’t his only body, I’ve recently finished another. He has a large switch on his back, flipping that will make him transform into it. It had an issue of taking too much power, but I fixed it so just waiting it out won’t work. H-however, it does have a weak point, a kinda obvious one. He isn’t going to let you get close, s-so that’s where the yellow button on the phone comes in.”

Nafi pulled the phone away from her ear just enough to see the yellow button before putting it back, saying, “I see it.”

“G-good, when you press it, it will turn your Soul yellow, oh w-wait we just finished… Um, n-not actually turn it yellow, i-it just looks like it. It’s a… a stored spell that takes extra energy off your Soul and allows you to fire it.” 

Well, that explained Undyne’s green Soul spell during their fight.

Alphys continued unimpeded by Nafi’s thoughts, “It’s ranged so you should be able to stay away from his attacks. Mettaton is angry, and he’s going to fire back hard. I’d...Y-you probably shouldn’t get hit.”

  
  
  


As Alphys finished, Nafi stopped in front of an extravagant door, just able to see Mettaton sitting in the dark beyond. 

“I’m here,” she said, “I can see him. Just to check your plan here, flip the switch on his back to make him switch bodies and make him vulnerable, press the yellow button on the phone to turn my Soul yellow, and use it to shoot at the weak point until he goes down. Anything else before I go in?”

“I h-had been working on a third body,” Alphys revealed, “one with more flash and lazers. If it is used, just wait for a few minutes and he’ll r-run out of battery. Same issue as the one I had fixed, but with everything going on it was harder to correct and I h-hadn’t fixed it yet”

“Alright,” Nafi paused, “Thank you.”

The monsters on the other side yelled words of encouragement, each in their own way, before she hung up as she stepped through the door.

Walking towards Mettaton, she was privately pleased to see her cape swooshed dramatically. If he was going to be a drama queen, so would she.

Mettaton didn’t react.

This was not normal.

She approached with more caution. 

When she finally stepped up onto the slightly raised stage then he started talking, “THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A BIG SHOW. AN ACT. THE HUMAN WITH THE HELP OF DOCTOR ALPHYS STOPPED THE MALFUNCTIONING ROBOT. HE HAD GROWN ATTACHED TO YOUR STORY AND DESPERATELY WANTED TO BE A PART IN IT. HE ENLISTED ME TO TORMENT YOU SO HE COULD SAVE YOU…” 

His screen turned red and his mechanical voice turned scathing, “BUT YOU SAVED YOURSELF. NOT ONLY DID YOU TOSS AWAY ALPHYS’ HOPES AND DREAMS ALONG WITH HIS SELF-ESTEEM, BUT YOU USED ME TO DO IT. IT’S TIME TO FINALLY HAVE OUR LITTLE SHOWDOWN, AND YOU ARE NOT LEAVING HERE WITHOUT FACING THE CONSEQUENCES.” 

The stage started to rise up, continuing until there was no safe way down. Mettaton reached behind himself and started expelling steam, and Nafi realized that he flipped the switch himself to transform into his second body. Which also gave her the time to realize what exactly Mettaton was saying. 

He wasn’t doing this for himself.

“Oh yes, you will learn your actions have consequences.”

He was doing this for Alphys.

“And, as a treat, I will make your last living moments Ab-so-lut-ly Bea-u-ti-ful!

The fog cleared

Her Soul appeared.

Mettaton and Nafi stared each other down on the high stage, him in contempt and her in angry appreciation.

His new body was almost identical to a human in form, down to the hair that swooped dramatically in front of his right eye. Past that it was obvious he wasn’t. With metal skin and obvious joints, buttons and dials on a bright pink chestplate that matched the boots attached to his legs, and a window in his stomach that showed a white Soul, he was the picture of a gaudy robot.

Health: 1600, Defense: 47, Attack: 47, he’s not immortal now at least.

Flip the switch, done

Nafi smirked, pulled out her phone, and pressed the yellow button. A shiver went through her and her Soul gained a yellow coloring. The weak point was most likely the Soul behind that window, and with a plan in mind she said, “Let’s go big guy.”

Nafi started off with a few shots, almost surprised that they came from the phone and not her Soul. Mettaton chuckled as they ricocheted off the glass, “That peashooter isn’t going to do much, nothing Alphys tossed at this even scratched.”

He followed up his declaration by tossing some bombs around Nafi, kicking at her to force her into the path of the bombs or be kicked off the stage. Nafi retaliated by switching the phone into her off hand, pulling out her sword, and batting the bomb closest to her into his face just as it went off.

1550/1600

It didn’t do much, but it tossed him back towards the edge and put him off balance. Taking advantage of this, she charged forward and stabbed her sword into the edge of the glass, using it as a lever to pull the glass off.

It came off, sliding across the stage, but not without a price.

Her sword shattered and she was flung back holding a useless handle.

Mettaton recovered and growled, “You…”

Nafi tossed the handle off the side stating, “Alphys may not have gotten the public hero image he wanted-.”

She was interrupted as dozens of tiny Mettatons zoomed out of nowhere to throw sharp metal hearts at her. Quickly, she shot them out of the sky to finish her statement, “But that doesn’t mean he didn’t help me.”

“Shut up and fight!” Mettaton replied, launching another flurry of kicks Nafi’s way.

She retaliated with another few shots, deflecting some of the kicks with them as she dodged the rest. She followed up by punching him in the face and firing directly at his Soul a few times.

19/20

1340/1600 

He fell back as she clutched her hand to her chest. They both looked at each other for a moment, before fighting with renewed vigor.

Nafi went for another charge, ducking under Mettaton’s leg and crashed into him. She got a few hits before Mettaton returned the punch to the face, sending her away. 

1200/1600

17/20

Mettaton then surprised her with a magic bolt from his soul, but she managed to dodge and fired off a few more blasts herself. He jumped to the side and almost completely fell off the stage, just managing to grab a hold of the edge to hoist himself back on.

The fight continued.

Although Mettaton was almost invulnerable everywhere but his Soul, he had much less experience than Nafi who, even without a sword, trumped him in speed and strength.

Even with the difference, both were taking hits constantly. 

900/1600

12/20

750/1600

9/20

500/1600

7/20

300/1600

5/20

200/1600

3/20

50/1600

“ENOUGH!” shouted Mettaton.

Nafi stood there, barely hanging on to the phone, bleeding from everywhere, and breathing extra hard as Mettaton sparked, twitched, and smoked. She mustered up a small smile and, between breaths, asked, “You… had… enough… then?”

“You are… a rotten brat,” Mettaton got out.

Nafi breathlessly chuckled, “I’ve... been… called… worse…”

He pulled himself up, some static making its way through his speakers. “Then how about this? You are a destroyer, a dream ender, and a killer of joy,” he laughed and Nafi stumbled back, “But I have one more trick up my sleeve.”

He twisted a knob on his chest and there wasn’t any smoke disguising his next transformation. 

Nafi watched as his soul was pulled up into his main body as a white decal replaced it. She watched as his legs flew off his body and attached themselves to his back. She watched as he unfolded new legs as his old ones fired lazers onto the shape of wings and his right hand morphed into a gun.

Health: 50/30000, Defense: 9, Attack: 90, this is an appropriate third form.

She dropped her phone, the blasts useless at this point, the yellow bleeding off her soul. Running to the side, she knew if she got hit once, it was all over.

Mettaton fired off a laser blast from his arm gun, then another, then another. Nafi barely managed to stay ahead of them, stumbling and unable to breath as she was.

Then he hit her cape.

The high heat laser immediately caught her cape on fire, starting to burn it and everything else in it. Stumbling over the glass from the start of the fight, she managed to pull off her cape as she hit the ground. Her hand hit the glass and she got an idea.

She spared only a moment to properly pick up the glass before she forced herself to get up and continue running, holding the burning cape in one hand and the glass in the other.

Mettaton fired again.

Nafi stopped and tossed the burning cloth onto Mettaton’s face.

He didn’t stop to remove it before he fired again.

She held up the glass.

The glass shattered into her but the laser reflected.

Mettaton’s gun arm was blasted off.

1/20

1/30000

The screech he let off was loud, even louder in the tall room. Nafi was forced onto her knees with her hands over her ears as the noise droned on and on.

Then it stopped. Her burned husk of a cape fell off the side of the stage as Mettaton fell over. He sparked and growled as Nafi wobbled up and over.

She sat down next to him as his laser wings flickered. 

“I... never... finished... talking… you... know.”

Mettaton’s eyes glared at her as she caught her breath.

Nafi, now able to breath, sighed, “Alphys waylaid me as I reached your hotel,” technically it was Sans but he didn’t need to know that, “We had dinner with Undyne, the Skeleton Brothers and Toriel. Apparently, something I said fixed a theory of his and he ran off to his true lab. I saw the Amalgamates.”

“Do you hate him?” Mettaton interrupted.

Nafi was quiet for a few seconds. “No. He did his best and made mistakes. We gave him the courage to finally tell the families. He didn’t get his public hero status, but he’s still a part of my, and many others, stories. I believe mostly for good reasons.”

He chuckled. “That’s all I wanted.”

The stage descended as he started to shut off and Nafi managed to stand up as Alphys came running in the room. 

He knelt by Mettaton’s head and said, “Thank you for thinking of me.”

He mouthed ‘You’re welcome’ before he finally ran out of power.

Alphys knelt there for a while as Nafi tried to salvage anything from her cape. Eventually he said, “He ran out of power. I’ll get him back to the lab and meet you and the others at the throne room.”

Nafi nodded and pulled out half a dozen miraculously unburnt veggie bars, scarfing four of them down right there.

Alphys left the way he came. Nafi waited for him to leave and put a command in her console.

/effect give Nafriskenta Regeneration 40

She shouldn’t be doubling the time she normally uses this for, but she was in really bad shape and there was no use bleeding out.

Through the pain, she stumbled into the elevator at the other end of the room and hit the up button.

In pain, she wondered if this was technically green magic, or if manipulation of surroundings applied to herself. She wondered what color her HUD would be if she saw it instead of hearing it. 

The elevator got to the top and she waited on the floor for the effect to wear off.

9/20

She pushed herself up and exited, eyes roaming over what looked like, at first glance, to be a grey clone of the Ruins.

This was New Home.

The finish line was in sight.

She started walking.

Hopefully Toriel would heal her before the final fight. Even if she wasn’t in danger of bleeding out, she was nowhere near good.


	11. CHAPTER 10: Fight For Mercy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I Just noticed I missed posting chapter 7 here. (Technically AO3 labels it chapter 8) It is now posted, go back and read it if you haven't.

**CHAPTER 10: Fight For Mercy**

New Home was not really exciting. Unlike the Ruins and Hotland there were no puzzles. Unlike Snowdin and Waterfall the place was almost lifeless. Unlike the Core it had no good reason to be this way.

Nafi looked off the edges of bridges as she walked towards her destination, wherever that may be. What monsters she could see seemed to be content sitting down wherever they were. On sidewalks, in the street, on uncomfortable looking benches, none of them looking up from staring despondently at the floor.

She followed the signs for the throne room.

It was quiet too. You never really realize the small noises of running water or blowing wind are there until they aren’t. Her own footsteps seemed to be quieter in the oppressive silence.

Yet, in the silence she had a moment to think. There was still the issue of the Undead right outside the Barrier and the lack of proper power to break it. What could be done about it though?

As she got closer to the end, the smell of dust became so strong she was almost tasting it. She tried not to think what the smell of dust ment for monsters. She failed and remembered that Alphys had said he was going to give dust back for funerals.

She hurried into the house at the end of the path.

Stepping inside, she almost thought she was back in Toriel’s house. Then she saw the chains and locks on the stairs and the monsters sitting around the corners of the room and the still pervasive grey.

She started searching the house for the keys.

During her exploration of the house, the monsters in the corners of the rooms stopped her to tell part of a tale. Each one she met told part of a story.

“A long time ago, a human fell into the Ruins. Injured by his fall, the human, Chara, called out for help. Asriel, the king's son, heard Chara's call.”

“He brought Chara back to the castle. Over time, Asriel and Chara became like siblings. The King and Queen treated Chara as their own. The underground was full of hope.”

“Then... One day… He became very ill. The sick human had only one request. To see the flowers from his village. But there was nothing we could do. The next day...”

Nafi entered a bedroom as the monster finished his part, the mirror of the room in Toriel's house that she had stayed in. There were two beds on opposite sides of the room, a single dresser in between them. On top was a picture, an engraved locket, and a rusty dagger. She ignored the locket in favor of the dagger, picking it up, then turned to look at the photo.

It was the same picture Toriel had. One of the pictures in the room under renovations.

She picked up the photo to look at it more, now that she wasn’t worried about being caught. Toriel didn’t look like she aged a day since the photo was taken, and given that this photo was in both their houses the other goat was most likely Asgore. His face was soft, mostly due to his large beard and shaggy mane. The photo was in black and white so what color they were she didn’t know, but they did look very kingly with his horns that came straight up out of the front of his head and swooped back in a nice curve.

Asriel and Chara sat in front of them, Asriel laughing at Chara who had buried his face in the bouquet of flowers he was holding. From the movement in the picture he had probably sneezed into them.

They were happy.

A happier family than Alex, Steve, and Nafriskenta.

_ “You are not my child if you refuse to even butcher a pig! Get out of my house and maybe just before you die out there you’ll realize they, and you, are nothing but food!” _

Nafi put the dagger and photo back and walked out.

The next monster continued the tale, “...The next day… Chara died. Asriel, wracked with grief, absorbed the human's Soul. “He transformed into a being with incredible power.”

“With the human Soul, Asriel crossed through the barrier. He carried Chara's body into the sunset. Back to the village of the humans. Asriel reached the center of the village. There, he found a bed of golden flowers.”

“He carried Chara onto it. Suddenly, screams rang out. The villagers saw Asriel holding Chara's body. They thought that he had killed the child. The humans attacked him with everything they had.”

“He was struck with blow after blow. Asriel had the power to destroy them all. But… Asriel did not fight back. Clutching Chara… Asriel smiled, and walked away.”

“Wounded, Asriel stumbled home. He entered the castle and collapsed. His dust spread across the garden. The kingdom fell into despair. The king and queen had lost two children in one night. The humans had once again taken everything from us.”

“The king decided it was time to end our suffering. Every human who falls down here must die. With enough souls, we can shatter the barrier forever.”

“It's not long now. King Asgore will let us go. King Asgore will give us hope. King Asgore will save us all.”

“You should be smiling, too. Aren't you excited? Aren't you happy?”

“You’re going to be free.”

Nafi looked after the frog monster that finished the story as it hopped away.

Toriel, Asgore, Asriel and Chara. 

Sans and Papyrus.

Undyne and Alphys.

Definitely much better families.

She unlocked the chains and headed down the stairs, following one last path into a new place.

This new corridor she found herself in and all of its shiny gold was a welcome change from the monochrome grey of the city.

Yet there was another monster here.

It was… Sans? Being serious?

“So you finally made it. The end of your journey is at hand. In a few moments you will meet the king. Together… you will determine the future of this world. That’s then. Now. You will be judged.”

Nafi unconsciously straightened up. Sans, the pun filled jokester, the lazy bag of bones, kind to her at her lowest, was serious. 

“You will be judged for your every action. You will be judged for every EXP you’ve earned. What’s EXP? It’s an acronym. It stands for ‘execution points’. A way of quantifying the pain you have inflicted on others. When you kill someone, your EXP increases.”

She looked down and to the side, feeling more exposed than she had in her entire time down here. As much as she ignored the fact, she had killed countless Undead and had the blood of 42 humans staining her hands.

“When you have enough EXP, your LOVE increases. LOVE, too, is an acronym. It stands for ‘Level of Violence’. A way of measuring someone's capacity to hurt. The more you kill, the easier it becomes to distance yourself. The more you distance yourself, the less you will hurt. The more easily you can bring yourself to hurt others.”

The memory of Flowey trying to give her LOVE with ‘friendliness pellets’ floated to the surface. Guess every lie does have a kernel of truth, it would have been so easy to strike down the flower had Toriel not intervened. 

She closed her eyes and awaited judgement.

Then immediately opened them and whipped her head back to face Sans as he chuckled. He shrugged and, losing most of his serious voice, said “the one issue with that is although your EXP is really high, your LOVE is practically minimal.”

Nafi opened her mouth to ask where her judgement was, but Sans winked and rolled right over her, “at first, i thought i was just misreading your Soul, but i’ve been keeping an eye Socket on you. i’ve seen you interact with people and you help everyone you can. when you do fight, it’s never to kill. so, somehow, some way, you have both LOVE and love if that makes any sense.”

Nafi looked at him for a second before sighing, “You can teleport, robots have Souls, death and destruction isn’t commonplace, it makes as much sense as the rest of this place.” 

He smiled wider for a second before continuing, “now, you’re about to face the greatest challenge of your entire journey. your actions here will determine the fate of the entire world. i would have thrown in the towel by now, but you’re determined and you’re kind and i know you’ll do the right thing.”

She laughed humorlessly, “I’ve never done the right thing in my entire life, I run on nothing but spite for the world that created me and all the other horrors in the night. You said it yourself, the numbers of those slain by my hands are high, both Undead and human. I never kept track of the Undead I killed and I lost count of the people I left to die at the hands of them, but I counted every human death by my hand. 42. I could make the excuse that I was defending myself or I didn’t know any better, but I killed them!”

She bowed her head and closed her eyes to stop the tears and from looking at Sans, but she couldn’t stop the flow of words, “At five I was kicked out of my own home for not killing a pig and not 3 months later a human was dead at my feet. To avoid killing the stupid pig I thought was my friend I have had so much blood stain my hands and the only thing that can stop the pain is by reminding myself that it would have been worse if I had. That I’d just be the emotionless killer that Mother and Father were and…”

She nearly fell to her knees as she felt Sans grab her hand and then opened her eyes to find herself staring right into his sockets.

“you wanna know what i see? i see someone who was given a bad Hand and dealt with it the best way she knew. i see someone who turned her back on that life the moment the option was available. look at yourself, do you think a murderer would be crying her heart out because she hates what she has to do? i don’t know any murderers personally, but i’m pretty sure that wouldn’t happen.”

Nafi closed her eyes again and gave a watery chuckle, saying, “This place does turn things on their head doesn’t it? My bow used in melee, my sword used in Defense, my machines used to help... Myself learning to hug a stupid, bowless, skeleton in clothes. Maybe I finally have done the right thing.”

She opened her eyes to an empty hall and a pile of tissues in her hand.

She took a moment to compose herself, wiping her eyes and blowing her nose. By the time she was back to looking normal and felt ready to face the next challenge she was hearing her friend’s voices echoing into her ears.

“We’re here, finally!” shouted Undyne as she raced into the room, followed quickly by Papyrus, Toriel, Alphys, and Sans bringing up the rear.

Toriel immediately came over to heal Nafi, saying, “You have gotten yourself in so many dangerous situations, I can only hope this is the last time I have to heal you.”

The others spread around the hall, Alphys laid down on the ground to catch his breath, followed soon by Sans who got a pair of raised eyebrows from Nafi who knew he didn’t do half that run.

Undyne and Papyrus were excitedly yelling about her fight with Mettaton. Apparently, although Mettaton himself didn’t broadcast the fight, they were able to watch it through Alphys’ cameras.

20/20

Eventually Nafi was healed and needed to move on, but Alphys was nowhere near ready to move. She handed her last two veggie bars to Alphys, told them to come in when he wasn’t trying to suffocate on air, and headed to confront Asgore.

She did not have to walk far before she was stepping into the throne room with him. The throne room itself was more like a garden filled with yellow flowers and Asgore was holding a watering can. Asgore’s large frame was hidden by an equally as large purple cloak accented by gold that matched his crown and hair.

Health: 3500, Defense: 80, Attack: 80, truly a king for the monsters.

“Dum de dum…” he hummed, “Oh? Is someone there? Just a moment, I’ve almost finished watering these flowers.”

Nafi stayed silent as he emptied the watering can and turned to face her properly.

“Howdy, how can I...” he said before he noticed her, “Oh...”

She tried to smile, although it looked more like a grimace, and said “I heard you wanted to see me?”

Asgore sighed, “Truly, no. I did not. I so badly want to say ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ But…”

“We both know what’s going to happen,” Nafi interrupted.

He nodded and started to walk away past the throne, saying, “If you are ready, come into the next room.”

Nafi followed right behind him.

Eventually, they came to a large doorway, and Asgore paused.

He looked back, and sadly smiled. “I see you are ready. You have one up on me, for I am not.”

They entered the door, on the other side was a large hall with an odd white strobe running down the length. Asgore spoke up again, “This is the barrier. This is what keeps us all trapped underground. If… If by chance you have any unfinished business, go do what you must.”

“You are my unfinished business,” Nafi quietly said.

“I see… This is it then,” he replied just as quietly

Nafi smirked as she heard the footsteps coming down the hall and, on a whim, said, “Because I brought my finished business with me.

“NOBODY FIGHT EACH OTHER,” Papyrus yells as he comes bursting through the empty doorframe.

Undyne follows up and continues, “Everyone’s going to make friends or I’ll suplex you with friendship!”

Toriel stomps into the room just as the six other human souls rise up from the floor. Nafi spares one moment to wonder how that even worked, before Alphys was pulling her out of the path of a small fireball chucked Asgore’s way. It did nothing, but Nafi then wondered if Toriel was actually hoping for a fight.

“Tori...” Asgore said, “You came back!”

Toriel was having none of it, “Do not ‘Tori’ me Dreemurr! You pathetic whelp. If you truly wanted to free our kind, you could have gone through the barrier after you got one soul, taken six souls from the humans, then freed everyone peacefully. But instead you made everyone live in despair, because you would rather wait here, meekly hoping another human never comes.”

“Tori…” he started before sighing, “You are right, I am a miserable creature. But… can we still be friends somehow?”

Toriel glared at him harder, “No.”

Undyne walked over and threw an arm over Asgore’s shoulders, “I like your ex. You have good taste.”

He choked in surprise.

Stepping forward, Nafi said, “Good news for you, I have a plan.”

Then a voice she hoped to never hear again yelled out from around them, “So do I!”

Vines shot out of everywhere, wrapping the human souls up, followed shortly by the monsters in the room.

Nafi moved to try and save them but was tied up just as fast, the vines even surrounding her Soul as it appeared.

“You idiots,” Flowey yelled, “You left the souls totally unguarded, and not just the human ones either! And you know what the best part is?”

Flowey grew his stem longer and leaned into Nafi’s face, whispering, “It’s all your fault. You made them love you.”

Nafi took a bite in the direction of Flowey’s face and said, “You know, you just showed up and I’m already getting tired of you.”

He laughed, “But you did! They wouldn’t have come here if you hadn’t. I wouldn’t be able to achieve my true form, and you wouldn’t be stuck down here with me!”

Nafi was slapped across the face by one of his pellets, followed by more and more running into every part of her body.

13/20

6/20

1/20

Just as she was about to pass out, Flowey stopped to yell, “Even if it means killing you one million times!”

A ring of pellets slowly closed on her, but a ring of fire repelled them.

“Don’t be afraid… No matter what happens… We will always be there to protect you,” Toriel grit out.

The next wave was stopped by bones and spears.

“THAT’S RIGHT! YOU CAN WIN! JUST DO WHAT I WOULD DO! BELIEVE IN YOU!”

Papyrus.

“If you got past me you can do anything! So don’t worry, we’re with you all the way!”

Undyne.

“you haven’t beaten this guy yet? come on, you should have Pollened him off already, this weirdo has nothing on you.”

Sans.

The next wave was stopped by small lighting bolts and more fire.

“Technically, it’s impossible for you to beat him… B-but, somehow, I know you can do it!”

Alphys.

“Human, for the future of humans and monsters… You have to stay determined!”

Asgore.

Monsters came flooding in, those frogs, Monster Kid, royal guards, that spider lady, all of them. All of them shouting as much encouragement as possible.

Nafi managed to pull an arm out and punched Flowey right in the face, saying, “Yet the very thing you gloated about is your downfall.”

He flopped onto the floor, and shakily said, “Unbelievable! This can’t be happening! You… you…”

He laughed and everyone stopped. He picked himself up, his face a demonic visage.

“Idiots. I can’t believe your all so stupid. How can something that’s a part of me be my downfall?”

More vines came out and started grabbing at the rest of the monsters as Nafi desperately tried to reach Flowey to stop him.

“And you,” he screamed as he pulled just out of reach.

She felt a searing pain in her back and saw as a vine came out her front, stabbing into her soul.

“Give Me Your DETERMINATION!”

Her soul cracked and everything went white.

0/20


	12. CHAPTER 11: As-Riel As It Gets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've done minor edits to Prologue through Chapter 5. Nothing major, but if you want, you can go back and read them.

**CHAPTER 11: As-Riel As It Gets**

_ “Nafriskenta!” _

_ “Yes Mommy?” _

_ “What is this I hear about you destroying your bed?” _

_ “It has my name wrong.” _

_ “It doesn’t matter if it has your name wrong, that’s no reason to take the footboard off your bed. And if I see you doing anything like that to anything else, you won’t like it.” _

_ “Why do they have the wrong name then?” _

_ “Because your name was written wrong. Now go practice your sword, there’s a surprise for you and…  _ Mr. Pigums… _ that me and Steve have set up for you.” _

_ “Yay!” _

Nafi sharply inhaled, coughing when the expected pain never appeared. She rolled from her back to her side, fighting through the memories of the family who abandoned her. Why did they ever let her name the pig if they were just going to make her kill it? No, no, don’t think about that, what was the last thing you remember?

Shakily, she pushed herself up off the… floor? The flat black expanse was solid enough to stand on, but…

She was dead.

She remembered dying.

She remembered the pain.

She opened her eyes, looking down at her chest. There was no hole, so that was good probably. She still had a Soul floating in front, but now it was almost entirely green with a small shard of red. Her strength was slowly returning, so she pushed herself up onto her knees. HUD still worked, and she…

Had 20/20 health?

“Finally, you're awake! I was so tired of waiting.”

Nafi looked over and saw a dead match for Asriel in the picture.

“Asriel,” she asked in surprise.

Asriel smiled wide, “So you do remember me Frisk!”

She frowned. “But I’m-”

“When you didn’t show up I worried, as much as a soulless flower could anyway.”

Flower? Did he mean Flowey? “Wha-”

“You naughty soul, you never even left me enough Determination to load when you decided to leave for twenty years.”

“Load? You-”

“Doesn’t matter,” Asriel interrupted, shaking his head and holding out his arms, “I’m your best friend…”

Light flashed through the black, blinding Nafi. When she could see, the little goat boy was tall and demonic looking. He smiled as the black turned into a hall of colors and said in a booming voice, “ASRIEL DREEMURR.”

She jumped to the side as fireballs rained down from above, the pattern almost fooling her into thinking Toriel was somewhere.

Of course the son would copy his mother.

Health: 9999, Defense: 9999, Attack: 9999, this is the power of an entire civilization.

The fireballs were soon replaced by stars. Nafi dodged as one hit the ground and exploded into more stars. Each star had an obvious trajectory, making them easy to anticipate and allowing her to dodge every one perfectly. The big one that followed the little ones was just as easy to avoid, although when it exploded it was slightly harder.

Asriel held up his arms as static charged around them, saying, “You know, I don’t care about destroying this world anymore.”

Nafi’s hair stood up on end as she barely managed to avoid the bolts of lightning that rained from the sky. At least magic lightning made the area it was going to hit glow before it did which made it slightly easier to escape unscathed.

Pulling out a pair of swords, Asriel continued, “After I defeat you and gain total control of the timeline, I just want to reset everything.”

She ducked under a swing.

“All your progress.”

She rolled out of the way of a cleave.

“Everyone’s memories.”

She tossed her legs in the air to jump over two more swings, leaving her standing as Asriel chopped both swords down, just barely missing her arms as she twisted.

“I’ll bring them all back to zero! And we can do everything all over again!”

Asriel floated back, leaving the swords to crumble. He smiled at Nafi’s painting form, saying, “And you know what the best part of all this is?”

He pulled out a giant gun.

“You’ll do it.”

He shot a series of blasts, Nafi barely being clipped by one of them.

15/20

“And then you’ll lose to me again.”

More shots fired, going wide of the girl in pain.

“And again.”

Another volley, Nafi sprinting to get away.

“And again!”

Another volley went wide. 

“Because you want a happy ending.”

The gun started to charge.

“Because you love your friends.”

Nafi dropped to the ground to dodge the giant laser blast.

“Because you never give up.”

The gun fell apart.

“Isn’t that delicious? Your Determination, the power that let you get this far. It’s going to be your downfall!”

Nafi was done with this and screamed her anger out into the world beyond, “And My Spite Will Be Yours!”

Asriel laughed at her and said, “Enough messing around. It’s time to purge this timeline once and for all!”

The colors disappeared and a force started pulling from behind her.

She fought against it for as long as she could, hoping there was something she could do to escape this.

In a twisted mirror of her exit from the Ruins, out of the black came a flying something that hit her, sending her into the ball of light sucking everything in.

1/20

Pain was her being, but she was still alive.

“Even after that attack, you're still alive,” Asriel mused from somewhere above her, “Wow, you really are something special.”

Nafi slowly rose to a standing position, as Asriel scoffed. “Don’t get cocky. Up until now, I’ve only been using a fraction of my real power.”

The dark became blindingly bright for the third time as Asriel shouts, “Let’s see what good your Determination is against this!”

When the light died, Nafi looked upon a new being, larger than anything with wings that encompassed everything she could see.

Her HUD gave her one thing: Infinity.

She pulled back, but she didn’t move.

“BEHOLD MY TRUE POWER! YOU SHALL DIE AND NO ONE WILL REMEMBER YOU,” Asriel raised a massive hand, multicolored fireballs forming around it. “SHOW ME WHAT GOOD YOU DETERMINATION IS NOW!”

They hit and once again Nafi saw her soul crack.

0/20

_ “Leave and never come back! You are no longer our daughter! Starve as a nameless wretch!” _

And once again she refused.

20/20

“No. I still have people to prove wrong.”

Her console, always text in the back of her mind, suddenly floated in front of her. Displayed prominently were five characters.

/save 

She knew what to do now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

/save Toriel

Well dodging fireballs is familiar.

“Toriel!”

“This is for your own good,” murmured the faceless Toriel as Nafi tackled her in a hug.

“You know it’s not. You know just how strong I am.”

“No one will leave again,” was Toriel’s only response.

Hugging tighter, Nafi buried her face in Toriel’s fur. “But you did. You followed me out and you helped me and everyone else with your level head and your warm hands and your cinnamon butterscotch pie even though I don’t know what either of those are. You helped me learn that not everyone is out to get me.”

Toriel returned the hug. “Do you really not know what cinnamon or butterscotch are?”

Nafi pulled back to see Toriel’s amused face and laughed, “Pie fixings.”

Toriel joined in the laughter.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

_ “Did you want to hear about the book I am reading? It is called, "72 Uses for Snails." How about it?” _

_ “Thank you but… How do I exit the Ruins?” _

_ “Um. . . How about an exciting snail fact? Did you know that snails. . . Some flip their digestive systems as they mature? Interesting.” _

_ “Please, How do I exit the Ruins?” _

_ “I have to do something. Stay here.” _

_ “Toriel!” _

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nafi blinked away the… memory? She never asked Toriel how to leave the Ruins, she did it herself.

She was back looking at Asriel’s large form, with something in her hand. A glance showed a red glow coming from whatever it was.

No time to dwell on questions.

/save

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

/save Sans

/save Sans  **and Papyrus**

What just messed with her console, why was it in code for the briefest of moments, and why did it give her both of them!?

Gravity felt so much heavier as she jumped over a bone and faced towards the faceless skeletons.

“Sans! Papyrus!”

“just give up. i did”

“I MUST CAPTURE A HUMAN!”

“You didn’t give up Sans,” Nafi yelled at the shorter brother, “You heard me and Toriel fighting and you blasted down the door for her! That doesn’t seem like someone who gave up.”

She ducked under a few more bones as Papyrus continued, “THEN EVERYONE WILL…”

“You don’t need to capture a human Pap,” she yelled at the other brother, “You have Undyne, Sans, Alphys, Toriel, me! You don’t need to prove yourself!”

Nafi dashed forward under a laser - which one of them could do that? - grabbing at both the brothers. “You both helped Toriel, you both helped me. You helped me learn to trust those around me, that I’m not alone.”

She was caught in a two sided hug as the brothers gave her the hug she was trying to give them.

“didn’t know you thought so highly of me.”

“YOUR RIGHT! I HAVE ALL THE FRIENDS I NEED!”

Nafi chuckled and, speaking to both, said simply, “Of course.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

_ “HUMAN! I HOPE YOU'RE READY FOR... SANS! WHERE'S THE PUZZLE!” _

_ “it's right there. on the ground. trust me. there's no way they can get past this one.” _

_ “SANS! THAT DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!” _

_ “whoops. i knew i should have used today's crossword instead.” _

_ “WHAT!? CROSSWORD? I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU SAID THAT! IN MY OPINION... JUNIOR JUMBLE IS EASILY THE HARDEST.” _

_ “what? really, dude? that easy-peasy word scramble? that's for baby bones.” _

_ “UN. BELIEVABLE. HUMAN, SOLVE THIS DISPUTE.” _

_ “Uh… I’m bad at both but I guess Jumble?” _

_ “HA! HA! YES! HUMANS MUST BE VERY INTELLIGENT IF THEY ALSO FIND JUNIOR JUMBLE SO DIFFICULT! _

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nafi blinked away another memory that wasn’t hers, she never did any puzzles in Snowdin, and dimly noted the red glow in her hand was brighter.

No time to waste.

/save

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

/save Undyne

“All humans will die!”

Nafi had less than a second to jump out of the way of Undyne’s downward attack. She immediately rebutted, “Undyne! Even those who saved your life?”

Even though she didn’t have a face, Nafi could tell Undyne was making a pissed off expression from just the tone of, “You’re our real enemy.”

“I am not! I saved you in Hotland even though I could have left you. I saved you when your house burned down and you were too hyped up on yourself to realize you were in danger. You taught me not everyone who attacks does so for themselves and I know I taught you something about foolish pride.”

Undyne grabbed Nafi’s hand in an impromptu arm wrestle and, with a blinding smile, said, “I never did thank you for saving me.”

Nafi smiled back, “I would have said it was unnecessary. Your welcome though.”

Nafi won.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

_ “She was kidding right? Those cartoons… Those comics… Those are still real right!? Anime is real! Right!?” _

_ “Uh… Technically? Anime is real.” _

_ “HA HA HA! I knew it! Gigantic swords! Magical princesses! Here I come!” _

_ “...You done?” _

_ “Uh… Thanks for taking care of Alphys I didn’t get to say what I wanted to, but… Things seem like they're going to get better. Well, I gotta go catch up with them. Later!” _

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Another saved, another memory that’s not Nafi’s, and more red glow in her hand. What is anime anyway?

Doesn’t matter, next one.

/save

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

/save Alphys

These almost look like Mettaton’s attacks.

“Alphys!”

He was curled in on himself, his blank face almost hidden. “You hate me, don’t you.”

“No I don’t. No one does and even if they do you have many more on your side,” Nafi said.

He curled more, “I’ve got to keep lying.”

She disagreed, “No you don’t. We went over this. You did your best and that’s okay. You helped me through Hotland and the Core and up to Mettaton and you helped me with that too. You tried to help everyone and you taught me that everyone deserves to have a second chance available. Including yourself.”

Alphys took off his glasses and gave Nafi a big hug, crying into her shirt.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

_ “W-well I guess it’s obvious huh. I… Uh… really like her. I mean, more than I like other people! I’m sorry.” _

_ “For what?” _

_ “I j-just figured, y-you know… It’d be f-fun to go on like, a cute, kind of… pretend date with you? T-to make you f-feel better?” _

_ “...Really?” _

_ “Well, it sounds even worse when I put it like that. I’m sorry. I messed up again. Undyne’s the person I, um… really want to go on a date with. But, I mean… She’s way out of my league. N-not that you aren't, um, cool! But… Undyne… She’s so confident… And strong… And funny… And I’m just a nobody. A fraud. I’m the royal scientist, but… All I’ve ever done is hurt people. I’ve told her so many lies, she thinks I’m… She thinks I’m a lot cooler than I actually am. If she gets close to me… She’ll find out the truth about me. What should I do?” _

_ “Tell her the truth of course.” _

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rinse, repeat. Who’s next? 

Oh… This is going to be tough.

/save

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

/save Asgore

More fireballs. At least they were easy to dodge.

“Asgore!”

“Please, forgive me,” he rumbled, his blank face trying to cry.

Nafi was face to face with this man for all of three minutes, that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to try and comfort this broken shell in the only way she knew how. 

Tough love. 

“Then earn it. Stop making the same mistake over and over again because you're afraid of the alternative. Stop pushing everyone away because you can’t bear to let them see you as the flawed man you are.”

“This is my duty…” he said as the large trident he was welding swung at her. 

She caught it.

“A duty you gave yourself when you were grieving, a duty made in a moment of weakness that has compounded into mistake after mistake. It is not your duty anymore, your duty is to fix it and make a future free of the past.”

Asgore fell onto his knees, dropping the trident, and looked at her with tear-filled eyes. “How can I do it alone?”

Nafi smiled, “Don’t. You got into this mess by not asking for help, so get out by doing the opposite.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

_ She stood in the barrier, looking upon the face of the king. He looked up, meeting her eyes for the barest of seconds. _

_ “You don’t have to do this…” _

_ He smiled sadly, “Human, Frisk, it was nice meeting you. Goodbye.” _

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nafi looked into the face of the being before her.

Asriel.

Chara.

Frisk.

Nafriskenta.

_ Nafienta. _

_ “It has my name wrong.” _

Or maybe it was right all along.

She swung her hand forward, pressing the shards of a red soul against the console.

/save Frisk

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You didn’t need to do that you know.”

Nafi smiled down and the smaller, and younger, version of herself sitting on her left. “It’s done now anyway.”

She looked at her own Soul, now with nothing else to hide it. It was a beautiful emerald green with a perfect spider web of cracks running across it. Underneath the green was a deep reddish-purple, Kindness and Spite, her own personality. Out of the corner of her eye, on the opposite side of Frisk, she spotted movement.

She looked over and saw Chara. She blinked in surprise, asking, “Why are you here? Wait…” she realized something, “Your voice is my HUD?”

He shrugged, “That’s part of the explanation of why Frisk is here.”

Nafi settled down, saying, “An explanation I’d really like to know.”

Frisk smiled, “ There’s a small bit of background to give first.”

Chara started, “You’ve probably figured out Flowey is Alphys’ vessel with Asriel’s dust injected with Determination. Manipulation of Surroundings is the best descriptor of it’s magic, but that includes time travel.”

Frisk tagged in, “Asriel, Flowey, woke up in the throne room garden. He was soulless, couldn’t feel anything. He tried to kill himself, decided against it halfway through, and woke up back in the garden. He turned the Underground into his playground, unable to feel empathy for the lives he was ruining. Every time he would reach a moment where there was nothing left to do, he would go back to the moment he woke up.”

Chara continued, showing his red Soul, “I discovered the magic of Determination second, it was too late anyway as I was dead at the time, but I used it to know everything about everyone in the underground. I didn’t really have anything else to do.”

Frisk’s Soul was also red, but a closer inspection showed it was green underneath. “When I fell, Chara latched on to me and together accidentally ripped control of the timeline from Flowey. Chara helped me get to the end with his information. We had to try again and again as we died over and over, but we did it. The barrier broke and the monsters went free.”

“And then we were all back in the Underground with no Frisk in sight. Like a piece of metal that had been bent too much, the timeline had been looped on itself so much if it went straight it would break. So we did it again, and again, and again. And we had enough.”

“Sans realized I was a time traveler on the fortieth run, and he had secrets of his own. One of which was a machine that was meant to jump timelines. The previous royal scientist had tried to use it to find a timeline where the barrier was broken, and erased himself from this one. Except he didn’t, because everything he affected was still here.”

“So an idea was created to use the machine to erase damages from the timeline, and it worked. Except, like the previous royal scientist, only technically because everything it caused was still there. The universe itself tried to run damage control, like a broken computer. Everything affected was basically put on standby.”

“Not only did that include me, Chara, and the Underground, but also magic itself. The Undead, Endermen especially, was what happened when the universe realized it needed magic to run and tried to make another. It failed.”

Nafi, tired of these exposition dumps, asked her main question, “What does your time traveling have to do with my HUD and console?”

Chara leaned against her, “Well, even if all this hadn’t happened, you still would have existed. We just ended up taking up the same spot as you when everything started up again, which gave us cheats. I gave you my knowledge as the HUD.”

“And I was refined into the console,” Frisk finished.

Nafi gave a slightly hysterical laugh and slung her arms over the two kids, “My life is such a mess.”

The three of them sat there in silence for a few more moments, before Nafi asked, “So does this mean you’re separate people again?”

The two looked up at her and Frisk said, “It depends on you.”

Nafienta smiled down at them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

/save Asriel

“Huh? What are you doing!?”

/save Asriel

“Wh… What did you do? What’s this feeling? What’s happening to me? No, no, no! I don’t need anyone!”

/save Asriel

“Stop it! Get away from me! Do you hear me! I’ll tear you apart!”

/save Asriel

“Chara… Frisk… Do you know why I’m doing this? Why I keep fighting to keep you around?”

/save Asriel

“I’m doing this, because you're special, both of you. You understand me. You’re the only ones that’s fun to play with anymore.”

/save Asriel

“No… that’s not just it. I’m doing this because I care about you. I care about you more than anyone else!”

/save Asriel

“I’m not ready for this to end. I’m not ready for you to leave. I’m not ready to say goodbye again.”

/save Asriel

“So… Please… Stop doing this! AND JUST LET ME WIN!”

1/20

“STOP IT.”

.01/20

“STOP IT NOW.”

.001/20

.00001/20

.000001/20

.0000001/20

/save Asriel

“...Frisk.”

/save Asriel

“I’m so alone Frisk.”

/save Asriel

“I’m so afraid Chara.”

/save Asriel

“I… I…”

The hulking monstrosity that Asriel had become shrunk down to the kid he was at the beginning, sobbing his heart out. “I’m so sorry!”

Asriel was startled as he felt arms wrap around him and heard Chara say, “You always were a crybaby.”

Frisk hugged him opposite Chara, adding, “There’s nothing to cry about, we forgive you.”

Nafienta, the tallest of the bunch, wrapped all three in her arms and lifted them off the ground, exclaiming, “People do stupid stuff when they aren’t thinking straight and soulless flower counts, don’t worry about it!”

Asriel, filled with love from both inside and out, laughed joyfully as the memories of trying to break the loop filled his head.

When Nafienta finally put them all down, Asriel turned to Frisk and asked, “Does this mean Sans’ machine worked?”

A different voice spoke from behind them,  **“In a way that it wasn’t meant to, but, yes, it completed your objective. The time loop is no more.”**

Asriel turned around and, recognizing the man that stood before them, shouted, “Dr. Gaster!”

Chara whispered to the other two humans, “Previous royal scientist,” receiving understanding nods back. 

Dr. Gaster smiled and stated,  **“With the timeline back to normal, I’m no longer erased. But so are all of the different loops. You all already have memories off the loops, but I do believe everyone else is going to wake up with headaches.”**

Just to make sure, Frisk asked, “The time loop is gone, but everyone has their memories of the loops?”

Gaster nodded and Asriel excitedly exclaimed, “Well what are we waiting for? Let’s break the barrier!”

Butting into the excitement, Nafienta said, “One issue with that, unless this whole timeline fix did anything to the outside it’s still a ‘kill the useless’ dystopia out there.”

Chara crossed his arms and asked, “Do you have a plan then?”

“I said I did earlier didn’t I? Don’t destroy the barrier, make it bigger.”


	13. EPILOGUE: Three Years Later

**EPILOGUE: Three Years Later**

Nafienta carried a pile of logs down the main street, nodding to the monsters she passed. Three years had passed since her world had been flipped, and she wouldn’t change anything. Except the splitting headache everyone woke up with when the Barrier was changed.

Her original plan was just to move the Barrier outside the mountain with the power of the Souls. When the power available went up the plan changed to reflect that, why move it when you can just make it bigger? Now the radius of the Barrier is high enough that you could climb to the top of Mt. Ebott and still be well inside it. It was even large enough that her old house was inside, the farms and everything.

Emphasis on ‘old’.

She was currently living with Frisk, Chara, and Toriel, who now ran the school. Chara was trying to get Toriel to get back together with Asgore while Frisk was trying to push her to Sans. Nafienta stayed as far away from romance matters and wished them both luck. Although since Asgore still lived in his house in the Underground and Sans was on the surface, she was pretty certain Frisk would win.

She was still not going to touch that, so she found herself doing physical labor around the growing town.

“Hey Undyne, Alphys, I got the wood you needed!”

“Thanks! This watchtower will be awesome once done,” Undyne exclaimed from the top of the construction site. Alphys looked up from his blueprints just long enough to point Nafienta to where to place the logs, that being next to Flowey. 

Flowey was currently using his vines and some saws to reduce the size of some logs that had been delivered earlier. Although he could never be Asriel again, the human Souls, what was left of them anyway, merged to give him a Soul of his own. Some monsters were a little wary of him at the beginning, but that number swiftly dropped as he helped as much, if not more than, her. Pure strength doesn’t really compete with multiple limbs.

Once her load was deposited with Flowey, she took a moment to look over Alphys’ shoulder at the blueprints. Sans sure knew how to make something take up the least possible space.

The changed Barrier didn’t just keep out the Undead and broken replace-magic, but no humans could enter either without a monster escort. That wouldn’t stop a truly angry human from trying a ranged attack though. So Undyne, as the captain of the royal guard, devised a set of watchtowers that could see out of the Barrier into the surrounding woods.

Still the royal scientist because Dr. Gaster wanted to retire, Alphys had helped his girlfriend in building the towers. Sans would also occasionally give advice stemming from his days as an intern with Alphys under Dr. Gaster.

Speaking of Sans, apparently his laziness was from vaguely remembering the time loop and the defeatist attitude that came from it. Remembering had something to do with the fact he was there when Dr. Gaster used his machine, which was also where the ‘don’t forget’ drawing had come from. It had been added to when it was used to erase the time loop and it did weirdness to Frisk and Chara.

Papyrus was so happy to see Sans doing something for once that he threw himself with triple the effort into trying to become a royal guard. He then burnt out almost immediately from the massive amount of work he piled on himself and pulled back to focus on cooking. His spaghetti was now good enough to be up there with the spider lady’s pastries. Nafienta found out later her name was Muffet when the spider was apologizing for the argument. 

They had really come far in three years, herself included.

She was more relaxed, knowing that she wouldn’t be attacked everyday and that she could just take a day off if she needed to. 

There was also the surprise that she wasn’t the only child to be abandoned. 

Now there were a few humans wandering around town. As long as they didn’t attack anyone they were free to stay. Nafienta was surprised how many humans didn’t actually want to kill, and although that number is low, she expected zero.

Maybe the separation between the humans and monsters wasn’t as large as she thought.

She was pulled from her reverie as MK came running up from the direction of one of the other watchtowers.

“Undyne! Miss Nafienta! Come quick! There’s two humans chasing a kid right towards the Barrier!”

Undyne jumped from the top of the construction as Nafienta knelt down to his height, asking, “Which tower?”

“3B!”

Undyne and Nafienta ran off at full speed, soon reaching their destination. With a direction from the 3B tower crew they ran off into the forest.

Even sooner the Barrier was in sight.

Gone was the odd, white running-strobe effect, now it was thin and mostly clear, allowing the duo to see the young child pressed up against it as two very familiar humans came through the trees.

Undyne grabbed the child and pulled back, the scared child ending up in her arms. Nafienta motioned for the two of them to go without her and she turned back to Alex and Steve.

“Who are you,” Steve asked angrily.

She opened her arms wide, “What? Don’t recognize your daughter? Oh right, you kicked me out.”

Alex stepped forward and slammed her fist into the Barrier, shouting, “You give Kristopher back this moment Nafriskenta!”

“Nafienta now actually. Did you really try for another kid after you failed with me?”

Steve stepped forward now, saying with as much vitriol as he could muster, “That’s no way to speak to your mother. What are you still doing alive?”

“See this,” she motioned to the two of them, “is why little brother Kris is better off with me. But you know what, I’ll tell you. You sent me out to die, and just to spite you, I lived…”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

**“And so the Barrier was made bigger. As wide as Mt. Ebbot is tall and wider still. A land of peace, a bastion of hope, and we can see the sun. Thus ends the story of Nafi, the human who, to spite the world, made it better. Thus begins the next chapter of Nafienta’s life, one of peace and happiness,”** Dr. Gaster said as he finished the tale, closing the book in his lap. 

The trio of monster kids that had been sitting enraptured by the story cheered, smiles on their faces and happiness in their hearts.

The crocodile monster kid shouted, “My favorite part was the fight!”

“Which fight,” asked the reindeer kid.

“All of them! Which was yours?”

“I didn’t really like the fights, my favorite part was how she helped Gyftrot and MK.”

The final monster kid of the trio, a black goat, looked to Dr. Gaster and pleaded, “Tell the story again mister. Please?”

He blinked in slight surprise,  **“So soon Ralsei? Do you not want another story?”**

Crocodile teeth snapped, the kid they were attached to shouting, “No! I want to hear that one again!”

**“Don’t snap your teeth like that Suzie, you’ll break one of them eventually. What about you Nicolle, do you want to hear it again?”**

“Yes, Yes!”

**“Well then, who am I to say no,”** he opened the book to the front and started to read,  **“Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a boy named Chara. He lived in an orphanage in a small town at the base of Mt. Ebott. He is not the hero of this story...”**

  
  


**THE END**

Thank you for reading!


	14. BONUS CHAPTER: Making Of

**BONUS CHAPTER: Making Of**

Back in 2016, I had the idea of “What would Undertale be like if the main character is more paranoid than Batman?” Then I crossed that idea with Minecraft and Nafi, in her most base form, was born

In 2017, I wrote the first version of this story on Wattpad, titled ‘Friends Are Useful’. 

In 2018, I rewrote the three chapters I had posted and moved it from Wattpad to Fanfiction.net and AO3.

In 2020, I finished ‘Friends Are Useful’ and found myself disgusted with the earlier chapters and decided to rewrite it once again under the title ‘Separation’.

You have read that finished product.

This is my first truly finished story, and as such I want to give those of you who have read this a peek behind the curtain. 

The Prologue was rewritten four separate times, every time it came out totally different. The first time was from Frisk’s point of view, the second was from Chara’s, the third can be read in the, still up, original ‘Friends Are Useful’, and the fourth is this one. 

There was originally an original character that started everything and not Gaster’s Machine, but as you can see, the only OC is Nafi. 

Chapter 1 got the second most reworking done to it, but the plot stayed the same over each version. Nafi goes mining, gets attacked, and falls into the Underground. In one version, she was attacked by another human, but that was quickly changed into an Enderman.

When we actually get to the Undertale storyline, you probably noticed I skipped large portions of the areas, especially skipping the entirety of the area around Snowdin in Chapter 3. That’s mostly because every Undertale story I’ve read that takes place during the game always seems to hit every puzzle and I didn’t want to rehash the same thing everyone else does. 

Really, this wasn’t supposed to be about exploring the environment, but about exploring character interactions.

That really shows in Chapters 3 and 5. Chapter 4 was really the lead up to Undyne and expanding her relationship with MK.

Chapters 3 and 4 also have the most foreshadowing of any of the chapters.

(Special thanks to One_Lost_Soul on AO3 for pointing out a few issues I had in these early chapters. I sometimes forget that I’m the only one who has the whole world in my head and I don’t mention important things.)

Chapters 6 and 7 I hated to write originally, Mettaton and Alphys just don’t seem to like me for some reason. That’s why Alphys’ dialogue is taken almost straight from the game and Mettaton is skipped whenever possible. The Muffet fight was skipped because I didn’t want to figure out how her mechanics worked (the strings, the pastries, her pet) and the idea of them getting into a fight about spiders was just too good to pass up.

Then True Lab happens early. The thing was, in the game, you only really unlock the True Lab after you get the Neutral ending, and without saves that couldn’t happen. So I devised a way for Nafi to get down there and then followed a let’s play for where she went. The induction of Entry Number 17 was just because I wanted more Gaster in there. 

Fun fact, the reason the rest of the monsters at the table took so long to get down there was Nafi broke the elevator. Sans had to take a shortcut in to fix it. So they knew he could teleport after that, which is why they don’t react to Sans going off to Judge Nafi and then coming back. Nafi just never bothered to question what took them so long or why they didn’t seem bothered because she had other things going on.

Another fun fact, Chapters 9 and 10 were originally one chapter and my beta reader had me split them. He helped throughout this entire thing actually, reminding me that this is actually a crossover and not just a retelling of Undertale, put some Minecraft things in there.

I loved doing the Mettaton fight, giving him actual reason to fight instead of just wanting to perform for the humans and leaving Alphys in the dust. The NEO transformation was inspired by a really cool animation on YouTube called “Undertale Shots: Chara Vs Mettaton NEO”. Go look it up! (I’m not giving the link because FF.N doesn’t like that and I don’t want to deal with it.)

Another reason why Chapters 9 and 10 were one originally was because the CORE was pretty much the Mettaton fight and that was it. Once I was told I had to split it, I added the magic conversations to get it up to 3000 words, which I set for the minimum words each chapter. 

I really enjoy the final three chapters, not counting the Epilogue, Chapter 11 especially. I didn’t even have to do much rewriting, given it was the last chapter I wrote before the rewrites.

Speaking of the Epilogue, would you believe me if I said I forgot Asriel/Flowey in the first draft and the second? I actually started posting the chapters before I remembered. Also, did you notice the final lines were the first lines of the Prologue?

Now, I want to explain some behind the scene physics for you. Specifically why Gaster’s Machine never worked. In this version of Undertale, alternate timelines don’t exist. The Machine looked for alternate timelines and, upon not finding one, tossed the searcher out of the timestream. How do Resets work then?

By bending the timestream like a paperclip to deposit the memories of the future into the body of the past.

Which is why Flowey’s constant Resets caused the time loop, when you bend a paperclip too much it breaks. When the time stream got past a certain point, it broke and bent back. What the Machine did was take everything that existed after the bend and toss it. Does that mean alternate timelines exist now? I’ll leave that up to you.

More background stuff that I never figured out how to incorporate, a Spite Soul’s natural magic? Redirection, specifically Damage Redirection. If Nafienta ever learns how to use her natural magic, not only could she heal herself on the spot but if someone sent an instant kill attack her way she could literally send most of the damage the attackers way. 

Here’s another fun fact for you, At the start, there were plans for a sequel with the cut OC as one of the main characters. It was going to be an AVP crossover set mostly in Minecraft. That’s not going to happen, but I did create Check dialogue for the humans:

**Frisk:** Pure green protected by a shell of red, her Kindness is only overshadowed by her overwhelming Determination to live.

**Chara:** Determined to the core, he never strays from his path to his and others lasting happiness, even if that path is stained by death.

**Nafienta:** She is kind, yes, but that Kindness is easily overcome by her Spite at the world and the heavy weight life has hung on her shoulders. A cracked, green veil hiding a reddish-purple center.

**Nafi:** A fusion of the three most powerful Souls, created by a desperate world.

When others didn't care, out of her Kindness, she cared.

When others abandoned her, out of his Determination, she lived.

When others told her to die, out of her Spite, they died first.

Maybe when Deltarune chapter 2 comes out I’ll make a sequel. Depends on what happens.

Either way, thank you so much for reading this, not only the story but my ramblings too. Extra thanks to those who comment, I read every one, even if I don’t respond.

I hope everyone has a wonderful rest of your lives.

~Multi

**Author's Note:**

> ('Hopeless LOVE' by ChillifyVilify on AO3 does this trope just as good if not better than me, many scenes towards the end were inspired by his story. Go check them out!)


End file.
